You might not get the complimentary fries with your steak in the near future.
The climate has not been in the favor of potato crops this season. Due to the mostly wet and cold weather prevailing in the US and Canada lately, there might be a lowered yield of potatoes, ultimately resulting in the unavailability of everyone’s favorite French fries.
According to speculations and estimates, the potato crops in the US this season will yield around 3 billion pounds of potatoes.
This is a staggering 6.1% lower than the 2018 crop.
According to a report by the United Potato Growers of Canada, this will be the lowest yielding year since 2010 – the year known for lowest potato yield in the US.
The top potato producer state of the US, Idaho, is estimating a fall in the production of potato by 5.5%.
The other states are looking forward to even worse crop yields. North Dakota has produced 11.8% lesser potatoes while in Oregon, the drop in production is estimated at 16%.
“French fry demand has just been outstanding lately, and so supplies can’t meet demand,” said the industry-relations director of the Idaho Potato Commission, Travis Blacker, reports Bloomberg.
However, there are three states who have managed to avoid the drop in potato production because of the climatic changes.
Another factor in the expected shortage of French fries, in particular, is the deteriorated size of the potatoes.
The potatoes that were resilient enough to survive the unforgiving weather developed smaller sizes than they should be.
As most of the chefs prefer longer and larger potatoes to make crispy fries, this size issue can result in fewer fries available in the market.
However, the sweet potatoes have dodged the harsh weather and their yield is nearly unaffected. It looks like sweet potato fries will be the trend in 2020.
Or maybe not, let us just hope for the best.
Replaced!