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Why Millions Of Potatoes Are Being Thrown Away During The Pandemic | Big Business - YouTube
Channel: Business Insider
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these potatoes aren't going to end up on
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your dinner table
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their final destination is this hole
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we're in the small town of Sheridan
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Montana on a potato farm
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normally this time of year Bill and
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Peggy would be sending their potatoes to
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be planted instead they're throwing away
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700 tons
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potatoes have been awful good tours for
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a lot of years but this year it just
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really turned sour
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and the same thing is happening across
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the Northwest I mean it was just
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unprecedented it's the supply chain from
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The Growers to the supermarket that got
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interrupted more than half of our Market
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shut down by government mandate
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Now farmers across Idaho and Montana are
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stuck with mountains of potatoes
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so why did this all happen
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we visited bouillon Ranch where Peggy
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and Bill had been growing potato seed
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for 59 years normally potato production
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across the Northwest looks like this
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it starts with a seed grower like
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bouillon where Farmers grow a variety of
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seed strains
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virtually all the potatoes grown started
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out from a certified seed and that
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that's a fairly rigorous process that
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avoids disease imperfections bouillon
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grows three different disease-free seed
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strains
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Umatilla Clearwater and rusted Burbank
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potatoes each potato variety goes to a
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specific grower in either the fresh or
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processed segment in the fresh segment
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you're actually seeing the potato in its
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true form that's foods like a raw potato
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at a grocery store or au gratin potatoes
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at your favorite restaurant the other
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side of that is because we call it our
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process segment you don't actually see
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the potato you see the byproduct or the
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the end result of that that's the bag of
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potato chips the french fries at
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McDonald's or the pre-cut fries in the
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frozen section
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here is a fresh product grower you'll
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plant a different variety or different
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genetic line of potatoes if you're a
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processed grower you'll grow a different
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product line just some fry better they
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have a better color to them others grow
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better now back to the farm
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potato Growers get the seed from
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bouillon and start planting in March
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then they harvest in early fall once the
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potatoes are out of the ground they go
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into storage or are sent to a factory
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where they're cleaned and turned into
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either fresh or processed potatoes when
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covet hit we had a huge run on retail
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which lasted for about a week to two
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weeks but then when we shut off all the
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restaurants that's when everything came
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out of kilter
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potatoes for Food Service like
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restaurants hotels and Catering make up
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an estimated 55 percent of all potato
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crops think of everything from White
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Table restaurants clear down your fast
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Quick Service
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so when Food Service
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covid-19 it was a chain effect
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processors cut down orders with Growers
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out of options The Growers cut their
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orders with seed farmers and more than
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half of the industry's potatoes were
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stranded on seed Farms
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in Peggy's case her customers in
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Washington were cut back more than 50
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percent and she and Bill were stuck with
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tons of seeds they'd normally sell you
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can't take these some of these
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facilities that are built directly for
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food service and then tomorrow flip a
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switch and make them able to sell into
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retail they're asking
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square peg in a round hole I guess is
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the best analogy I can come up with the
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Surplus potatoes also couldn't just be
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sent to grocery stores grocery stores or
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retails would have been bursting to the
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seams with potatoes if we redirected all
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that
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we had high hopes and maybe something
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would turn up you know that in a month
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or so we might be able to send them
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somewhere for some kind of processing
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but this year's there's just no no
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market for them we're just taking them
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out taking them into a burial pit
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Peggy and Bill had been forced to bury
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1.4 million pounds of potatoes in total
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it's costing us money just to bury these
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between our time and labor and renting a
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large excavator to dig the hole and and
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cover them it's it's it I mean it's it's
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not free just to throw them away to us
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it's an expanse just to get rid of
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when you dump that many potatoes the
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financial hit yeah I mean that was
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what's so heart sickening is the
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financial burden
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it takes a tremendous amount of capital
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to grow across the potatoes bankruptcies
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are starting to crank up before the
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pandemic Zach estimates Idaho farmers
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were looking at a 15-year high in potato
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prices now they're facing a 20-year low
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Zack says a hundred pound sack of
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potatoes went from costing about 12
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dollars a sack to three dollars a sack
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and a farmer needs it to cost at least
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five dollars to break even
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Peggy and Bill are facing 140 000 in
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losses for Farmers across Idaho and
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Montana that number comes to eight
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million dollars some of these farmers
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are looking at red all over their
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balance sheet and there's no black to be
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seen they'll be looking into increasing
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their lines of credit they'll be needing
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to remortgage some of their property you
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know just trying to free up more Capital
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to try and survive for next year
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when you put all your work and effort
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into growing them and the expanse and
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the pride of what you grow and then to
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just completely just throw it away and
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waste it
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to save some of the potatoes from going
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to waste huyan Ranch got creative
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Peggy and Bill have given out roughly 75
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000 pounds of potatoes to the
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surrounding Community he's organized two
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or three giveaway days and we've had
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pickups from 100 miles away people come
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and got potatoes she's distributed them
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down on our street in town just set up
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and people stop they give them a bag of
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potatoes and just to try to get somebody
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benefit from them even though they're
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losing money on them they'd rather see
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someone even than nothing happen at all
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farmers are also mashing up potatoes
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into a compost like mixture to feed
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cattle next year we've put them into
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this pile and mixed straw then we're
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going to put plastic over the top of it
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and let it get totally broke down by
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next fall at that point if everything is
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okay and the rations then we'll start
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feeding the calves with them
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money out of our pocket trying to find
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another use of the spuds
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but all of that effort barely made a
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dent in the number of stranded potatoes
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right now it's like 200 000 roughly in
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there with everything I would say it's
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pretty devastating you know for a small
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operation for us
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all in all an estimated 1.5 billion
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pounds of potatoes are trapped in the
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supply chain across the U.S if I was
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advising a year ago
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not knowing what was going to happen I
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wouldn't have told them do anything
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differently they did now if we'd have
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anticipated covid wrong and had a short
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crop a very small crop it would have
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been devastated to food hunger we'd have
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had Mass shortage of potatoes and that
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would have been even worse
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luckily Zach says all this food waste
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won't lead to a shortage next year
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farmers are still planting potatoes just
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not as much going forward this year I
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think the farmer's doing the right thing
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we thought you know let's plant what we
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do and take the risk we already have the
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ground prepared and we had we raise our
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most of our own seed and buy some so I
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mean you might as well just carry on I
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guess that's kind of the farm and ranch
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bad years you just start over the next
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year and hope for a better you know
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better season if if you didn't you'd
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have quit a long time ago
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but that's the plight of a farmer we're
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always looking for next year
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Farmers farm for the love of farming and
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even in tough times we still will
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continue to farm for the love of farming
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