Potato growers who contract with Midwest Foods of Carberry, Man., are bracing for the worst and hoping for the best this spring.
Midwest Foods expects to make a 15 percent cut to its contracted potato acreage this year. About 100 growers will be affected in Manitoba’s potato growing regions, which include Altona, Winkler, Carman, Portage, Carberry and Melita.
“It is a substantial blow for a lot of us,” said Garry Sloik, secretary-manager of the Keystone Vegetable Growers Association.
Midwest Foods and McCain Foods are the main buyers of Manitoba potatoes destined for the french fry market. Midwest said it is cutting acreage in Manitoba due mainly to competition from Alberta.
Read Also
Russian wheat exports start to pick up the pace
Russia has had a slow start for its 2025-26 wheat export program, but the pace is starting to pick up and that is a bearish factor for prices.
“We’re in a very competitive market situation right now,” said Midwest’s field manager Bob Hyra.
Lamb Weston, the largest producer of french fries in North America, has built a new plant in southern Alberta that should start production this spring. McCain Foods is also building a new plant in the same area, while doubling production at a plant in Maine.
Hyra sees the new Alberta plants as being geared toward Asia, where markets will expand as the economies there recover. As that happens, he expects to see less pressure on Manitoba’s potato industry.
“I think this is just a bump in the road,” he said, noting the future still looks good.
About 76,000 acres of potatoes were grown in Manitoba last year to meet the needs of McCain and Midwest Foods. Contracts with Midwest Foods accounted for about 30,000 acres of that production, Sloik said. The expected cutbacks through Midwest would see acreage slashed by about 4,500 acres.
Not all producers will be affected equally by the cutbacks. Midwest has a profile of its growers that looks at factors such as the quality of potatoes grown and the ability to satisfy supply contracts. Part of the supply assurance is determined by whether growers have part of their land in irrigation.
Sloik said some growers may see no reduction in the contracts while others might see their contracted potato acreage cut in half. The cuts will hit potato growers hard, he said, due to the money already invested in equipment and storage sheds.
Some time remains before growers take to the fields to seed their potatoes. The acreage cutbacks may change if Midwest picks up new markets between now and then.
The latest rollback comes after several years of expansion in Manitoba’s potato industry. Carberry’s Midwest plant has “virtually doubled” its capacity in the last five years, Sloik said.
He now wonders why Midwest is pointing to the new plants in Alberta as a main cause of the current cuts. Because those plants are not yet in production, they have not shipped any french fries to market.
