Potato Prices

$6 for a 50# bag of unclassified potatoes at the farm stand my daughter works at.

Prices at Mcdonald's still the same around here, no price increase.

__________________

I see a very dark cloud on America's horizon,
and that cloud is coming from Rome.
- Abraham Lincoln

I gotta problem with bagged potatoes. I am limited to shopping at three places-- Wal Mart and two small, Texas based chain stores. For the last couple of years when I buy bagged potatoes, they last less than a week before they start sprouting eyes and getting soft. I store them dark and cool but they don't last even a week. And most of them smell so strongly of mold I cant' stand the smell of even walking by them in the stores. I don't know if being refrigerated at some point along the supply chain is the problem or what, but I won't buy them anymore. I don't even want the stinking, sprouting things in my house anymore.

Potatoes I grow don't do this, regardless of if they are wax potatoes or russets. I don't grow a lot of them so by late summer/early fall I am buying potatoes at the stores again, and they are a waste of money. If I buy them at all, I buy about three large russet bakers @ .79/lb and use them up. At least they last a few weeks in storage without stinking like mold, sprouting and turning to mush.

2.50 for 10# russets here. Same store sells 50# sacks for $20!? Yeah, I just buy 5-10# sacks and save the difference, lol.

__________________
Jen
If my typo's bother you, come on over and take a chair. We can discuss it over some "ham and swill calzones"
Follow us at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimisod/

Sold my crop for $1.89 a lb. Thought that was a good price for my time and labor. Red potatoes.

__________________
:cool: :angel: TRUTH & MERCY
www.dixieflowersoap.com
www.mollyjogger.com
Big D Farm Blog

$10 for 5o# for reds. Right from the farmer.

__________________
Roger

$12 for a 50# bag. I wonder sometimes why I grow them.

__________________
So in the morning, please don't say ya love me.
Cause you know I'll only kick you out the door.

If you are buying them at this time of the year, you are probably getting the tail end of last year's crop that has been in storage since about last September/October. I would suggest you buy the small red potatoes, which are most likely to be this season's crop--and they would be fresher. They would be small red "new potatoes" and would be mature and harvested earlier. For this year's Russets, I would wait until Thanksgiving for the new, fresher ones.

geo

That's what I figured--that they have been refrigerated for months on end. Grocery store apples have similar issues by spring and definitely by summer here-- dried out, pithy, the blossom end opened up, full of brown spots and covered in so much wax you can see your reflection in them. I learned when I was a teenager not to buy "fresh" apples in the spring or summer because they've been refrigerated since the previous fall. Or they're from South America or Australia and hard as rocks and don't taste much better. In my climate, apples are difficult to grow.

http://articles.philly.com/2013-06-1...-potato-supply

i live in southwest WA state. i've notice that over the past month or so, reds and yukons have become bizarrely reasonable. around here, a 5# bag of either for 1.99 is pretty cheap. the russets....i dont' even bother with'm anymore. they just don't hold up like the reds or yukons. what i don't understand is that Idaho is right next door to WA. it's not like the tators gotta be transported from the East coast. for the life of me, i cannot understand the cost of sweet tators!!!

It's because sweet potatoes require a lot more manual work than regular potatoes. Also no large commercial growers in the PNW. Closest are California and Oklahoma.

Martin