Potatoes are becoming more expensive: what is happening with prices?
21 February 09:15
Since the beginning of this week, there has been a trend toward higher potato prices on the domestic market in Ukraine, according to analysts at EastFruit, as reported by Komersant.
At the same time, according to producers, stocks of high-quality potatoes in storage facilities are gradually decreasing, which is the main reason for the price increase in this segment.
Currently, Ukrainian producers are offering potatoes for sale in the range of 7-14 UAH/kg ($0.16-0.32/kg), depending on the quality, variety, and volume of the offered batches, which is on average 17% more expensive than a week earlier.
According to experts, the main reason for the increased interest in purchases was the overall reduction in the supply of potatoes from local farms. The fact is that many producers who do not have the capacity for long-term storage completed the sale of their products before the New Year. According to experts, in the last months of the current marketing season, it is possible that there will be mass deliveries of imported potatoes to the Ukrainian market, which is traditional, despite the high production figures for “second bread” in Ukraine, as declared by Ukrstat.
Prices are also supported by fairly high demand for quality products from wholesale companies, which are increasingly reporting a lack of the necessary volumes of such products on farms. Farmers, in turn, attribute the main quality problems to unfavorable weather conditions during the 2025 harvest: prolonged rains negatively affected not only the marketable appearance of potatoes, but also their shelf life.
It should be noted that today, potatoes in Ukraine are sold on average 56% cheaper than during the same period last year.
