News on Potatoes in Retail from China

The 16th Tengzhou Potato Industry Development Conference was recently held in Tengzhou, located in the Shandong Province in Eastern China, to promote industrial investments and tap development potential. 

This historic event, which is helping to pave the way for commercial shipments of U.S. chip-stock to China, was marked with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and speeches by U.S. government officials and representatives from Potatoes USA.

At this stage, the sales volume of warehousing potatoes in the northern first cropping area of ​​potato is not large, and the price is mainly stable.

Walmart China has plans to accelerate its expansion by opening more than 500 new stores and "depots" (smaller warehouses) in next five to seven years and updating 200 existing stores in three years, the company's top executive said.

The price of new potatoes in the northeast of China dropped last week and dropped even further this week. The supply speed also seems to slow down in comparison with earlier in the season.

Since 2015, China has selected more than 10 potato varieties suitable for processing staple foods and developed more than 300 potato-based versions of staple food.

Farmer, Hao Jinde, sold his potatoes, over 500 kilograms of them, for 600 yuan (US$88). Instead of setting up a stall on the street, this year Hao sold them to a store belonging to an online shopping platform in his village in Jingle County, a potato growing region in north China’s Shanxi Province.

It may surprise many people to learn that China has been the world's largest producer of potatoes since 1993. But it should not be entirely unexpected. The Chinese diet has changed drastically since the economic reforms of the 1980's.

The China International Potato Summit Forum was jointly held by MOA Agricultural Trade Promotion Centre and the Government of Yanqing County, Beijing. Vice Agricultural Minister Niu Dun attended the forum and delivered remarks, together with Director-G...