Crunch time for Tasmania's potato growers

Up to 140 of the state’s potato growers who contract for Simplot Australia will meet in Deloraine on Wednesday afternoon for an update on price and contract negotiations for the 2025/26 growing season.

On the back of the recent good harvest, and with plenty of spuds in storage, it’s expected to be tough going for growers, who are concerned that Simplot will walk away from the successfully executed gross margin model that’s been in place for several years.

Potato Growers Committee chair Leigh Elphinstone said that the ability to base prices on carefully calculated overheads for farmers, from fertiliser and fuel costs to property rates and wages, has worked well.

“If they don’t want to pay a price relative to gross margin, it’s going to be hard to bear with the financial pressures that growers are experiencing,” he said.

“Growers still need to make a profit at the end of the day, or we’ll be facing a situation where, like in 2020-21 when the yield was particularly bad, they will start to transition away from spuds.

“There’s only so much you can squeeze a sponge.”

Potatoes are by far the most expensive crop to grow in Tasmania but highly regarded in the frozen chip industry nationwide for their quality and biosecurity.

About 90 per cent of the state’s spuds are processed, with Simplot supplying chips to Birds Eye and McDonalds.

The Potato Growers Committee, made up of 15 growers from across the state, has met with Simplot’s new management team several times in recent weeks and is ready to update the wider growing community and take feedback back to Simplot.

Negotiations are expected to go back and forth for several weeks.

“When Simplot was crying out for potatoes we didn’t deviate away from our gross margin and demand a premium price just because we could,” Mr Elphinstone said.

“Our aim is to stick to a fair model that irons out the highs and lows and make it a more stable industry.”

Mr Elphinstone said that current rainfall levels were between 40mm and 150mm down on last year which had been the driest growing season on record for potatoes.

He said growers need to take into consideration what they might be facing if there’s not enough winter rainfall leading into next season.

“We know Simplot won’t need much in the way of early planting late this month due to current stores and that things will ramp up in late September, early October,” he said.

“These negotiations will hopefully give growers the chance to move forward with confidence.”