Wholesale prices for potatoes in Ukraine began to increase at the beginning of last week, according to analysts from the EastFruit project.
In this market segment, prices had remained unchanged since mid-December last year. Moreover, from the beginning of the second decade of the last month of 2025, sellers increasingly reduced their selling prices for available batches of potatoes, especially for produce that was no longer suitable for long-term storage.
The pricing situation started to change from the middle of the current month. Supported by stable demand and a noticeable decline in supply, sellers raised wholesale prices for available volumes of potatoes to UAH 7–13 per kg ($0.16–0.30/kg), which is on average 16% higher than at the end of the first ten days of January this year. It is worth noting that representatives of wholesale companies are increasingly complaining about the lack of sufficient volumes of high-quality potatoes in local farms.
According to experts, the main driver behind the current price increase in this segment is the overall reduction in potato supply on the domestic market. Producers who do not have adequate storage facilities completed their potato sales even before the onset of frosts at the beginning of this year. At the same time, owners of high-quality potatoes continue to keep their main stocks in storage, expecting higher prices in the coming months.
Some farmers, in turn, associate quality problems and, as a result, unstable market supply with unfavorable weather conditions during the 2025 harvesting season. Rainy weather in several producing regions had a negative impact not only on the appearance of potatoes but also on their storability. In addition, according to producers, the local seed material predominantly used in 2025 was of relatively low quality.
At the same time, despite the recent price increase, wholesale potato prices in Ukraine currently remain on average 60–65% lower than during the same period last year. Owners of high-quality potatoes believe that the current price trends in this market segment will strengthen further — if not in the coming weeks, then by the beginning of spring this year.
More detailed information on the development of the potato market and other fruit and vegetable segments in Ukraine is available on the EastFruit platform.
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