People in Germany ate potatoes more often during the Corona crisis.
Per capita consumption rose by 2 kilograms to 59.4 kilograms in the 2020/21 financial year, as the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food announced in its potato balance on Monday.
The per capita consumption of potato products such as French fries, potato salad or chips fell by 400 grams, while the consumption of fresh potatoes rose by around 3 kilograms per person to around 24.2 kilograms.
The main reasons for the development are the corona-related restrictions in out-of-home consumption and the increased preparation of meals in private households.
As in previous years, the domestic demand for potatoes from domestic production could be met.
The degree of self-sufficiency in 2020/2021 was 145 percent.
People were less on the go and ate french fries less often
Since there were corona-related sales problems for potatoes that are further processed into French fries, some of them were processed in starch factories or fed into the feed.
Around 68 percent of the potatoes used domestically were used for food consumption (2019/20: 70 percent).
14 percent was used in industrial utilization (starch) (2019/20: 13 percent), eight percent as planting material (2019/20: 9 percent) and 4 percent as fodder (2019/20: 3 percent).
The losses were around 6 percent (2019/20: 5 percent).
The potato acreage was around 258,300 hectares in 2021, around 6 percent below the previous year.
This is the first time since 2016 that the cultivation area has not been increased.
The preliminary harvest volume fell by a good 9 percent and totaled 10.6 million tons of potatoes for 2021.