REPORTS of a widespread potato shortage had chip-lovers in a panic last year, but the status of potato supply in South Australia may not be as clear cut as media reports suggest.
While some growers have felt the pinch, locally run Mitolo Family Farms has experienced an upturn in demand since the beginning of the new year.
Head of sales and marketing at Mitolo, John Tselekidis, believes that the reports have created a “misconception” about the industry.
“There have been differing reports in regards to what’s causing the shortages,” Mr Tselekidis said.
“There are two distinctly different types of growers.
“One set of growers grow for the fresh market, which Mitolo is a big part of.
“That’s anything from your supermarkets, your green grocers and your wholesalers that go across Australia to supply food service outlets as well as the veggie boxes like HelloFresh.
“Then you’ve got the processed growers which is a large, independently based network of growers in Victoria and Tasmania, and they either grow contractually for the likes of PepsiCo, snack brands, McCains and those guys.”
Large-scale weather events in Tasmania and Victoria, specifically in Ballarat – one of the richest areas for potato growing – have brought about difficult conditions for the processed growers.
This led to reports of a shortage, with growers unable to meet the demand placed on them by the mass production companies they serve.
“They just couldn’t grow plants, and you need ideal conditions for land prep and planting,” Mr Tselekidis said.
“If you miss your window then there’s no point because you don’t get the yield and you’re always chasing the crop. The margins in that processing harvesting environment are exceptionally tight.”
Mitolo, one of the leaders in the fresh market, has thrived where its processed-growing counterparts have failed.
The economic outlook in Australia has meant a greater demand for fresh potatoes in recent times, something Mr Tselekidis expects to continue into the winter months.
“With borders open we saw a massive amount of people leaving the country in the middle of last year and volumes were down from a production perspective,” he said.
“But, they’ve been gradually building back up over the past four months or so.
“They’re predicting interest rates to go up another one or two points which increases financial pressure so people’s expendable incomes will diminish.
“They’ll start to tighten the reins on trips away and eating out frequently.
“Come June, July and August when 2.5 million people come off fixed-rate home loans and their payments effectively double or triple, there’s going to be a big strain on the amount of disposable income people have, so I only foresee the demand going up for the fresh market.”
With a number of farms across the Riverland and Mallee regions and a main processing plant in Virginia, Mitolo is able to grow for 11 months of the year.
To keep up with increasing demand, the family-owned farm has had to employ new-age technological tactics, along with its tried and trusted traditional techniques.
“You’re often just looking for the little one per-centers to constantly improve the way you do your growing and your harvesting to maximise your yield,” Mr Tselekidis said.
“That’s anything from fertiliser and chemical programs to watering programs.
“You’ve got different ag-tech around precision planters and GPS technology systems to improve all of those practices that are traditional techniques but get a better result from a yield perspective.
“We’re still harvesting the way we always have in the sense that there’s a trailer that follows the potato harvester, but the number of rows that we harvest at a time is increasing.”