For a second year in a row, R.D. Offutt Farms has left some potatoes unharvested in the ground to decompose on some of their Minnesota farms.
Jennifer Maleitzke, director of communications and external affairs for R.D. Offutt Company, said the company met all their potato contracts this year and those potatoes left behind are left due to quality issues.
“These guys put their blood, sweat and tears into the crop, so it’s not something we like to do,” Maleitzke said of those that grow the crop across Minnesota and North Dakota. “Sometimes it’s a necessity. And I will say this year, because of the unique and challenging weather season that we had, you know, we were able to pick the best-of-the-best crop, and so the potatoes that we left in the ground were fields that had been potentially more challenged by weather.”
Maleitzke did not have specific numbers of unharvested acres to share.
Recognizing that markets can ebb and flow and production can sometimes outperform demand, she shared that they are working to find homes for the abundance of potatoes. In addition to allowing “community digs” where the public can dig for potatoes, for free, in certain fields for designated days, they also sought to share their abundance with food shelves. They are working with
Second Harvest Heartland
and have delivered the first shipment of 55,000 pounds of potatoes to fill food shelves within their network. Maleitzke said they are working on a long-term partnership with Second Harvest to donate up to 1 million pounds of potatoes this year. Second Harvest reaches 464 agency partners and more than 780 programs across a 59-county Minnesota and western Wisconsin service area, according to their website.
The sight of left behind potatoes and news of a potato plant closure in Washington State has brought up concerns about the state of the industry.
last week that something as simple as McDonald’s $5 meal deal is having an impact on potato demand as more people choose the meal that features a small fries over a larger option.
“It’s important to note that many of these promotional meal deals have consumers trading down from a medium fry to a small fry,” Werner said according to USA Today coverage of an earnings call.
Some rumors being spread on social media that R.D. Offutt Farms lost their contract with McDonald’s to supply potatoes are false, according to Maleitzke. It’s Lamb Weston that is contracted by McDonald’s to supply them with fries and Lamb Weston contracts RDO to supply them with potatoes. In either case, Lamb Weston is still contracted by McDonald’s to supply french fries.
Real market issues are at hand for at least a portion of the industry, specifically Eagle, Idaho-headquartered Lamb Weston. Lamb Weston President and CEO Tom Werner noted that there is a current supply-demand imbalance in North America, in an
.
“Restaurant traffic and frozen potato demand, relative to supply, continue to be soft, and we believe it will remain soft through the remainder of fiscal 2025.”
The imbalance led to the permanent closure “of an older, higher-cost processing facility” in Connell, Washington. Further restructuring included temporarily curtailing production lines and schedules in North America, reducing approximately 4% of global workforce, and eliminating unfilled job positions, according to the press release.
Gary Shields, executive director of the
Northland Potato Growers Association
in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, said from his view of about 30 years in the potato industry, there may be market shifts, processing plants may change their strategy, but overall potatoes continue to show growth. The market demand is not only strong across fresh, frozen, process and seed potatoes, but he adds that more acres for process potatoes are being added and higher yields mean the trend remains to grow more potatoes.
“It’s not necessarily due to demand,” Shields said. “It could be demand in an area, but overall, the process industry is just, you know, one of the faster growing industries globally. It’s an exciting time and, you know, markets shift, as we know, but overall, we’re always looking at new opportunities and growth … So I would say for us overall, it’s still a very good, strong industry, for sure.”
He could not speak to potatoes being left in the fields, but said the situation is more complicated than demand. He echoed what Maleitzke shared including that such a decision could be made due to weather-related crop damage or potatoes that were too small due to the extended low number of heat units during the prime growing periods in 2024. The cool and wet growing season followed by a dry late season has brought challenges across the upper Midwest for all crops.
R.D Offutt Farms reported an average year for growing potatoes in much of the central Minnesota region that they grow potatoes. Harvest was
slowed due to warm temperatures
that kept crews from their more typical harvest schedule.
Michael Johnson is the news editor for Agweek. He lives in rural Deer Creek, Minn., where he is starting to homestead with his two children and wife.
You can reach Michael at [email protected] or 218-640-2312.