How potato grades affect FOB price: US No. 1 vs US No. 2

A US No. 2 potato sells for less than the same potato graded US No. 1, and the gap is wide. On USDA's shipping point reports, US No. 2 has sold a median of about 35 percent below US No. 1 for the same district, variety, pack and size on the same day, across more than 2,700 such pairs since 2021. The grade moves the price because it decides what the potato can be sold as.

This week the paired lots show US No. 2 at 48% below US No. 1 ($14.50/cwt).

What each grade requires

USDA's grade standards for potatoes set both grades (7 CFR 51.1541 and 51.1543). US No. 1 potatoes must be firm, fairly clean and fairly well shaped, meaning not materially pointed, dumbbell-shaped or otherwise deformed, and free from damage, with a minimum diameter of 1 7/8 inches unless another size is specified. US No. 2 drops the firmness and cleanliness tests. It only has to be not seriously misshapen and free from serious damage, with a 1 1/2 inch floor. Both grades must be free of freezing, blackheart, late blight, southern bacterial wilt, ring rot, soft rot and wet breakdown.

The line between the grades is a weight test. Damage is a defect that costs more than 5 percent of the potato's weight to remove; serious damage is one that costs more than 10 percent (7 CFR 51.1560 and 51.1561). The tolerances differ as well: at shipping point a US No. 1 lot may carry 8 percent of potatoes that miss the grade, a US No. 2 lot 10 percent (7 CFR 51.1546). The standards also define US Commercial, which is US No. 1 with looser limits on dirt, russet scab and rhizoctonia and wider tolerances, but it does not appear in the shipping point quotes this site stores.

How the grade shows up in the FOB price

The cleanest read of the grade effect is a pair: two quotes on the same day for the same district, variety, pack and size that differ only in grade. The table above lists every pair USDA is quoting now, and the grade spread page keeps the full record.

Worked example. On September 17, 2026, round reds from Big Lake and central Minnesota, Size A in 50 lb sacks, quoted $10.00-12.00 a sack in US No. 1 and $5.00-7.50 in US No. 2. The range midpoints are $11.00 and $6.25 a sack, or $22.00 and $12.50 per hundredweight. The No. 2 sack sold for $9.50 per cwt less, 43 percent below No. 1, for a potato from the same district in the same bag on the same day.

That discount is not a fixed markdown. Each grade is its own small market with its own supply and its own buyers, and the gap moves with both. Through September 2026, Red River Valley Size A reds ran a median 39 percent discount over 565 same-day pairs, while Florida's Size A reds ran nearer 31 percent. Florida's Size A whites and yellows and California's Kern District reds have run in the 40s. Year to year it swings further: the Red River Valley's Size A median was 48 percent in 2025 and 27 percent in the first five months of 2026.

Why russets rarely show a grade spread

Russet quotes almost never pair. US No. 1 russets are sold count-graded in 50 lb cartons, where the count sets the price (carton counts explained covers that ladder). The russet US No. 2 that USDA quotes out of Idaho and the Columbia Basin is packed in 50 lb sacks by minimum weight, 6 oz or 10 oz, so the two grades rarely share a pack and a size. That makes the 50 lb sack page a US No. 2 russet market, and it is labeled that way. Setting a No. 2 russet sack against a 70-count No. 1 carton mixes the grade with the pack and the size, so this site does not call that gap a grade spread.

Graded and ungraded lots

Nearly every potato quote at shipping point carries a grade. USDA's potato FOB reports held about 15,000 US No. 1 quotes a year from 2021 to 2025, about 1,850 US No. 2 quotes and only a handful with no grade stated. The Russet Report reports each grade as USDA publishes it, straight off the shipping point line, and never folds a No. 2 quote into a No. 1 price. For how size designations such as Size A and Size B sit alongside the grades, see the potato sizing chart.