Outlook 2026: Potato price pressure mounts
© GNP The optimism of the sector experienced over the past two years has been dampened by the finish to the marketing of the 2024 harvest, due to oversupply as old crop moved to the new crop.
The 2025 planted area is expected to be in line with 2024 and, despite the dry weather, early yield reports indicate that irrigated crops have performed well assisted by the warm sunny summer.
Given the relatively straightforward harvest, crops should have gone into store clean and dry.
Quality, however, is expected to be a challenge for some crops due to the increased incidence of bruising in tubers lifted in warm, dry conditions.
See also: How potato harvest fared in 2025
In summary
- Recent price pressure is expected to remain through the 2026 harvest as retailers try to fight inflation
- More dry summers demonstrate an increasing need for winter water storage
- Low returns on capital and proposed IHT consequences mean growers must revisit long-term plans and consider their attitude to risk
Continuing the theme of water, in Outlook 2019, Farmers Weekly wrote about the summer of 2018, when water tables were low and many irrigation reservoirs were empty.
We had hoped it was an extreme year, but the unrelenting drought of 2022 and a further dry year in 2025 suggest it was not.
Winter water storage becomes increasingly necessary and will yield a stronger return on capital.
The review of abstraction licences is now approaching fast and will require growers to be well prepared and ready in good time to argue their case.
As will have been written elsewhere in Outlook, UK agriculture is under severe pressure with the withdrawal of subsidy payments, delays to environmental scheme renewal and low commodity prices.
This tends to increase the focus on potato production, as growers seek stability and profitable enterprises.
The appetite for risk, particularly among the providers of finance, is significantly reduced when other parts of the business are almost guaranteed to lose.
Inflation
Contract prices for the 2026 harvest are expected to be under pressure from retailers trying to fight inflation.
However, given the impact of all the issues above, sentiment is that a price increase is necessary, although, as has been said many times, perhaps a further drop in crop area would focus minds.
All this leads to the need for the packers and processors to appraise their supplier base in light of concerns over the continuity of supply and the approach to rewarding growers.Â