After a series of bumper harvests, European growers now find themselves awash in potatoes. The flood of tubers has pushed market prices down sharply, leaving many farmers struggling to cover their costs.
In mid‑January, a dramatic demonstration unfolded on the Concorde Bridge outside the French National Assembly: twenty tonnes of potatoes were emptied onto the pavement, a visual protest against the collapsing market. "It’s cheaper to give away the potatoes than to store them," explained protester Denis Lavenant, a farmer from the Yvelines region.
Across the border in Belgium, activists took to a Flemish highway, handing out leaflets and potatoes to draw attention to the slump caused by EU trade agreements that have weakened the market.
According to François‑Xavier Broutin, head of the French potato inter‑professional board (CNIPT), the sector is confronting a genuine crisis driven primarily by a mismatch between supply and demand.
Fry Market Competition
The North‑Western European Potato Growers (NEPG) network—representing Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands—has been warning about the risk of a continent‑wide oversupply for months.
These four nations together account for roughly two‑thirds of Europe’s total output. In 2025, the harvested volume nudged close to 30 million tonnes, a jump of about 10 % compared with the previous year.
Germany posted its strongest harvest in 25 years, while French acreage expanded by roughly 10 %. Yet, industrial demand failed to keep pace.
NEPG points to several factors: a dip in frozen‑fry sales after U.S. tariff hikes, a strong euro that makes European exports less competitive, and growing competition from processed potato products originating in China, India, Egypt and Turkey.
In the past two years, China and India have multiplied their frozen‑fry exports to neighboring markets tenfold, while the EU’s own exports have slipped—down as much as 6 % for Belgium, the world’s leading fry exporter.
Broutin believes the downturn is largely cyclical. Global demand for potatoes is still rising, but European planting has outstripped market needs, creating a surplus that will not be required until the latter part of the decade.
New processing capacity is already coming online. A plant near Dunkirk can turn 1,400 tonnes of potatoes into fries each day, with two additional facilities under construction in the Somme and the Nord departments.
Contract Price Collapse
The fallout is hitting growers hard. While most industrial purchases are pre‑contracted (about 80 % in France), many farmers still faced spot‑market prices that fell to as low as €0.50–€4 per 100 kg by the end of 2025.
By early 2026, as planting season approached, growers were urged to reconsider the hectares they would allocate to the crop. The French Union of Potato Producers (UNPT) warned that contract offers had slipped by roughly 25 %, with the price for the popular “Fontane” variety dropping to about €130 per tonne, down from €180 the year before.
These stark numbers could compel many producers to scale back their acreage, reshaping the European potato landscape in the years to come.