Varieties

Red potato prices

Red potato FOB across origins, size a 50 lb sack, USDA shipping point reports

Data through Aug 27, 2026 · source last checked Aug 28, 2026 · page revised Aug 28, 2026

Cite
$/50 lb sack
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Free to republish with attribution. The chart updates automatically as new data lands.
About this data
Source
USDA AMS shipping point potato FOB reports (FV130)
Series
Red potatoes, FOB per hundredweight
Basis
FOB shipping point, per hundredweight
Geography
Across US growing origins
Unit
$/50 lb sack
Last observation
Aug 27, 2026
Update frequency
USDA reports on business days

Red potato FOB mostly $10.00-10.50, 50 lb sack, unchanged on the week and month.

The numbers
PeriodCurrentPriorChange
Week over week$10.25/50 lb sack$10.25/50 lb sack0.0%
Month over month$10.25/50 lb sack$10.25/50 lb sack0.0%

Previous weeks

An earlier week

Red potatoes, Size A, 50 lb sack, mostly $10.25 at Red River Valley, unchanged week and month, though the quote dates to early June.

Week of Aug 10, 2026

Red potato FOBs at $10.25 per 50 lb sack, size A, unchanged this week.

About Red potato prices

Red potatoes are a fresh-market crop almost end to end. Fry plants run on russets and chip plants contract round whites, so nearly all red volume moves through the tablestock channel these FOB prices cover: 50 lb sacks and cartons, baled consumer bags and 2,000 lb bulk totes.

The Red River Valley on the Minnesota and North Dakota line is the anchor origin, harvesting in the fall and shipping out of storage from October into June. Wisconsin quotes reds from August into March. Fresh crops cover the rest of the calendar: Florida from February into June, California from May into July, and Virginia, Delaware, Minnesota and North Carolina through the summer and early fall.

Reds are not graded by carton count. They are quoted as Size A, the larger table size, and Size B, the smaller, with creamers below that, so a red quote has to be read against another red quote at the same size rather than against a russet count. Planted acreage is a fraction of the russet base, and a thin market moves harder: one origin coming up short, or a handoff between two districts that lands early or late, can push reds further in a week than the same event moves russets. A move in reds says little about where russets are.

Common questions

What is the current red potato price?

mostly $10.00-10.50 ($20.00-21.00/cwt) FOB at the shipping point, size a 50 lb sack out of Red River Valley, as of Jun 5, 2026, per USDA shipping point reports. USDA publishes a range rather than a single figure, and the chart above compares that same pack across every origin currently quoting it.

Which origins ship red potatoes?

Minnesota, California, Florida, Red River Valley, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Delaware are the districts quoting red in size a 50 lb sack on this page. Each district runs its own season, so which origins appear changes through the year. The US potato calendar covers the handoffs, and the origin pages carry each district on its own.

Why is the price shown as a range?

Because that is what USDA publishes. A shipping point quote is a low-high range across the confirmed sales for that origin, pack and grade, and where the volume supports it USDA also prints a tighter mostly range where the bulk of the trading landed. A single number would be a midpoint nobody actually paid. How to read the USDA National Potato and Onion Report walks through one line field by field.

Is this a retail price?

No. FOB means free on board at the shipping point: the potatoes loaded on a truck at the packing shed, before a mile of freight. A grocery price adds the haul, the wholesaler, the retailer's margin and shrink on top, and it moves far more slowly than the FOB quote does.