French potato farmers are facing a severe crisis as a record-breaking 2025 harvest collides with slowing consumer demand, leaving them with massive unsold stocks. Encouraged by previous strong demand from the processing industry for fries, chips, and mash, farmers expanded their potato acreage by 10% in a single year to nearly 200,000 hectares. This expansion, combined with favorable weather, resulted in a historic harvest of 8.8 million tons—a full million tons more than the previous year. However, industrial buyers like the Mousline puree company report a 3% drop in their own sales and state they cannot absorb the surplus, leading to a saturated market. Farmers like Benjamin Smee are watching thousands of tons of quality potatoes sit in storage with no buyers, facing severe cash flow problems and the heartbreaking prospect of their produce going to waste.
The oversupply has forced some farmers to offload their surplus at a loss or even give it away, while others scramble to find export opportunities in a similarly saturated European market. The situation is so dire that rejected potatoes may be sold as cheap animal feed for as little as €40 per ton, far below the estimated €140-per-ton break-even point. Processors are already planning to purchase less volume and at lower prices next year. Despite the crisis at the production level, supermarket prices for potato-based products have yet to drop due to long-term contracts between manufacturers and retailers. Ongoing negotiations could lead to lower prices for consumers starting in March, but for now, the financial burden rests squarely on the shoulders of the nation’s potato growers.
