Avebe Raises Interim Potato Price by €10 per Tonne as Drought Tightens Starch Market

Dutch starch cooperative Avebe has raised its interim payment for starch potatoes by €10 per tonne, lifting the mid-campaign price for 19% starch deliveries to €75 per tonne, as drought-hit harvests flip the market from surplus to deficit.

Avebe, the Royal Dutch starch potato cooperative, has increased its interim price by €10 per tonne, the co-op announced in an update to members on 8 October. The move brings the interim payment to €75 per tonne for potatoes delivered at the standard 19% starch content, with the supplement payable on deliveries made up to 1 November.

The interim price is built up from several components, according to the cooperative’s breakdown: a base price of €50 per tonne including the member premium, the new €10 interim supplement, a €3 quality bonus, a €10 full-delivery bonus and a €2 cooperative result component. Starch content shifts the final figure within a defined corridor: at 18% starch the price works out to €71.84 per tonne, at 20% to €78.16, and at 23% — reachable in week 45 at maximum premiums — to €87.63 per tonne.

The price increase reflects a sharply changed market balance. After campaigns marked by oversupply, drought conditions across the growing regions have reduced both yields and starch levels, moving the starch potato market from surplus into deficit territory, the cooperative indicated. Processors that earlier in the season could buy freely are now competing for raw material.

Avebe’s roughly 950 members had already responded to the earlier surplus signals by cutting their committed A-volume from 4.75 tonnes of starch per share to 4.25 tonnes. The cooperative’s delivery system distinguishes between this contracted A-volume and additional B-volume. Under Avebe’s balance rule, B-volume may still be settled at the A-price if a member’s total deliveries fall short of the A-volume commitment — a clause that gains practical importance in a season when drought makes contracted volumes harder to fill.

The €10 supplement applies to deliveries up to 1 November, positioning the higher price as an incentive to bring potatoes to the factory early in the campaign rather than store them. Storage of starch potatoes late into the season carries weight and quality losses, and in a tight market the cooperative has every reason to pull raw material forward.

For members, the definitive campaign price will only be settled in May 2027, when the cooperative’s full financial year results are known. Interim prices are exactly that — an advance on the final settlement — but they are the figure that shapes growers’ cash flow through the winter and their cropping decisions for next spring.

The Dutch decision lands in a European processing market that is repricing across the board. With free-buy prices for processing varieties in the Netherlands and Belgium stuck around €20–23 per 100 kg for French fry potatoes and contract prices for the new season down sharply year on year, the starch segment’s move upward stands out — driven not by demand growth but by weather-constrained supply.

The cooperative’s decision also matters beyond its own membership. Avebe is the benchmark price-setter for the European starch potato segment, and an upward move of this size mid-campaign is a signal other buyers in the starch and flake segments can hardly ignore. For growers holding undelivered potatoes, the message is twofold: the market has tightened enough for the co-op to pay up for early delivery, and the door is open for the final settlement to improve further if the deficit persists through the processing season.