No french fry shortage looms in 2024

There will be no shortage of french fries in 2024.

Canada and the United States produced a massive crop of potatoes in 2023, so french fry processing plants in Alberta, Manitoba and elsewhere will need to operate at full capacity to work through the huge stockpile of spuds.

Statistics Canada data, released in early December, shows that farmers produced a record crop of 128 million hundred weight (cwt) of potatoes in 2023.

That’s 22 percent more potatoes than Canada’s 2020 crop and 3.7 percent higher than 2022.

“There was more acreage in the West… and you also had much better yields,” said Victoria Stamper, general manager of the United Potato Growers of Canada, who was boarding a train in Montreal, while speaking to The Western Producer.

Growing conditions were dry in southern Alberta but the lion’s share of potatoes are grown under irrigation. In Manitoba the crop got off to a strong start, thanks to warm weather in the spring.

Yields in both provinces were above normal – with Alberta hitting a yield of 419 cwt per acre and Manitoba at 372 cwt per acre, using Stats Can data.

American farmers in Idaho and Washington State also produced strong yields.

“More than enough (potatoes). I’ve got extra,” said Terence Hochstein, Potato Growers of Alberta executive director, in October.