Spanish farmers warn of fraudulent retail practices with new potatoes
Potatoes, vegetable
Spain’s UPA-COAG agrarian organisation has warned of fraud in several Spanish supermarket chains, which are reportedly selling conservation potatoes as new Spanish potatoes. In a statement, the organisation also complained of supermarkets selling new potatoes at a loss in a bid to increase sales of other products.
“They repeat practices of this type over and over again because it is very cheap for them to break the law”, said representatives of the organisation, which has asked the Junta de Castilla y León and the Ministry of Agriculture to act immediately to sanction firms acting in this way.
The UPA-COAG Alliance notes that new potato producers are experiencing “a delicate situation due to prices that in many cases are significantly lower than production costs”, to the point that in some campaigns, it has been more profitable to leave the potatoes in the ground than to pick them.
