The United Potato Growers of Canada says total Canadian potato storage holdings for May 1 were down 1.2 per cent over 2022 numbers for the same period, but higher than the three-year average.
There were fresh shippers in both Canada and the U.S. that noticed a slow-down in sales after the Easter holiday in April, which bears out when looking at the disappearance figures by sector where there was a decrease in movement in the fresh sector when compared to movement in April of last year.
The larger shipments were in processing (up nine per cent from April 2022) and seed increasing 75.2 per cent over April of last year, most likely due to a warmer and drier spring with producers pulling seed earlier, as they are on-time for planting this year compared to last.
In total, growers shipped 12.8 million cwt of potatoes from storage in April 2023, an increase over March shipments of 11.6 million cwt and 16.7 per cent higher than in April 2022 with the bulk of this increase coming out of the seed sector.
In fresh, many benefitted from high demand in April leading up to Easter, but saw a slight decline the last two weeks of April, with shipments for the month overall down compared to March for all provinces except New Brunswick, Ontario and Alberta. Other than Quebec and Manitoba, all provinces showed decreased movement of potatoes in the processing sector as well, and all showed moderate to good movement of seed as growers prepared for planting, with a particularly large movement of seed out of Alberta.
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