Comment: Preliminarily results from the IFA early planting survey suggest that early plantings were slightly increased, up some 3% on last year. Queens accounted for the slight increase in plantings, the area of Home Guard decreased slightly and Premier area remained static. The first crops of early Rooster should be harvested early to mid-August. The peeling market appears to be improving slightly as more restaurants are reopening. In the UK, much of the overall movement in the potato trade has been new-crop contracted supply. As such, demand for free-buy has been relatively muted and so supplies continue to be lifted into stores. New-crop has accounted for much of the movement in packing markets this week. There were more reports of purchasers transitioning into the new-crop as planned. Across Europe sales of product increased rapidly once lockdown ended but there is feeling that demand is now starting to level off. Demand for export is subdued where countries are still restricting movement.

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