Each quarter we are interviewing someone in our business and sharing insights into what their role involves. See what goes into providing our frozen potato products from coming up with concepts in the NPD Team to checking all the potatoes we use meet our strict requirements in the Quality Team. Up first is Matt Leach, one of our UK Account Managers.

With this summer set to be one of the warmest in recent years, consumers will be taking advantage of the nice weather and dining out – making it a prime opportunity to increase your profits. Here are our top tips for getting your menu summer-ready:

In last newsletter I advised that the EU-5 2018 acreage was expected to shrink by around 2% - 3%, in response to the extreme high potato production in 2017 and resulting low daily prices. The 3% shrink would give an acreage of 565.975 ha. and an EU-5 production of 26,7 mio tons, based on an average yield of 47,2 tons/ha.

With the recent announcements of high profile restaurant closures, it is clear to see the Casual Dining market is going through a time of change and is evolving to become truly customer-orientated. We are seeing that operators who focus their efforts on service and creating extraordinary experiences are proving successful in this period of uncertainty.

Following a search for the nation’s best breakfast dish, Aviko has crowned Bar Dos Hermanos as the winner of the Great British Breakfast competition.

To assist operators in providing high quality home deliveries, Aviko has launched the new Premium Crunch Fast Food Fries which stay piping hot and crunchier for longer.

Over the past few months the processing industry has expanded its capacity substantially with a record production of over 29 mio tons. However, through processing potatoes in the EU-5 this lead to an imbalance between supply and demand.

The perceived health benefits and delicious taste of the sweet potato has led to a boost in demand for this root vegetable, and desire for the unique taste shows no signs of waning.

For my final newsletter of 2017, I have made six predictions for 2018 which we will re-visit in one years’ time:

In the last edition of the newsletter, the EU-5 production of ware potatoes (for fresh consumption and processing) for crop year 2017 was estimated at 27 till 28 mio tons. On the 3rd November the NEPG, The North-Western European Potato Growers published their adjusted figure of 28,9 mio tons.

We are delighted to announce we have launched our new Crunch Fries which are perfect for home deliveries. With a higher dry matter to keep the fries crunchier for longer, the new premium Crunch Fries can help you grow your profits and deliver a great taste which everyone can enjoy as they are both gluten free and suitable for vegetarians.

With consumers increasingly looking for something different on Christmas menus, our Gastro Gratin’s will give your dishes the edge to help maximise profits over the festive season.

Our latest insight shows 66% of UK consumers do not think there are enough sweet potato options on menus*. With such strong consumer demand, this poses an opportunity for operators to increase their sweet potato offerings with exciting options that consumers will be willing to pay more for.

Our competition is now closed! Keep an eye on our website for more competitions in the future.

By the time you have finished reading this, we will have moved over to a new harvest main crop which brings its own challenges, not least because of the variable quality of raw material we are witnessing from the farms. However, from a consumer point of view, it is good news that potato prices have fallen over the last two months. If we look back to April 2017, the day and 6 month potato future prices were certainly a lot higher than where we find them today. As I write this newsletter, the raw material prices across Europe are falling below €100/ton.