First the price of lettuce went through the roof. Now potato prices are set to soar. See: https://kitchen.nine.com.au/latest/price-of-potatoes-austral…
KFC replaced lettuce with cabbage. Now what will fast food places do with french fries? Fried daikon radish strips?
Australia is suffering an obesity epidemic and chips & sugary soft drinks are the leading culprits.
Hopefully, high potato prices will lead to smaller portion sizes for chips & some slight improvement in the nation's health.
Well, potatoes innately aren’t unhealthy.
There’s better ways to cook and consume it.
I agree, those frozen - deep fried fries are a real problem but I doubt that serving a ‘smaller portion’ would do much here.
I am rather concerned about the families that live on a tight budget and rely on a cheap vegetable like potatoes.
Potatoes have a really low nutritional value when compared against other vegetables. The WHO even classify them separately to other veg.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/healthy-die…
I'm with you though in overall being concerned about the health and diet implications short and long-term due to the rising cost of foods and changes in diet and food variety etc, that will occur. It's a depressing mix paired with the ever increasing rates of illness and disease.
I should have specified myself better…
Potatoes along with eggs are the cheapest sources of protein, natural carbs for the people that work highly physical jobs.
Loads of immigrants like myself compliment our vitamin rich leaf/lentil based diets with boiled/baked potatoes to supplement the lack of protein and carbs required.
On a second thoughts, it might just be a cultural thing.
I'd be happy if junk food were kept the same price, serving size lowered, and quality/freshness increased a lot. The value proposition at the snack aisle is skewed way towards giant packs of things, and when it comes to eating some it's too easy to just scoff the lot. I know some people who aren't overweight but say they can't have junk food in the house because they are too tempted to just eat it all.
Finally, the sweet potato has lived in the shadow of the potato for too long - until now!
Calm down
They will try to pull this shit but considering bagged potatoes regularly get marked down, thankfully a lot of people will be ok. I prefer Cauliflower mash these days but even the prices on them are silly now. Supermarket ones are runty but the local farmers market is fine
KFC will be using chokos instead of potatoes
Sounds like they're just trying to raise prices. I read a similar article previously, and there was a comment from an SA potato farmer. Approximately 1/3 of Australian potatoes are grown there, and they were saying there were no issues, in fact they'd had bumper crops
Even with other cost increases, they said there shouldn't be massive increases in price
La papaya Du la potatoooooooooo
So "cheap as chips" will become "expensive at chips"
:(
No doubt macca's will figure out some way to fry sliced lettuce, and make it look and taste like their equally synthetic fries
Maybe some enterprising Chinese companies will start produce melamine potatoes ?!?
Macca's fries aren't synthetic, not sure where you got that info.
As a fry connoisseur, I'm offended
Not synthetic- at all? Do you mean by weight, or volume? ;-)
Alright I am joking.
But do you really know that they don't control the genetics, or chemical constitution of the oil and spuds they cook, and the fries they serve?
If in any doubt…. they do control- the varieties they buy, the size, mass, price, water content, pathogens, moulds, probably, the insecticides, and genetics. But don't hold your breath for the last two to be officially acknowledged.
Concerning
Username checks out.
Don't know about potatoes, but the Egg section at my local Woolies had been stripped clear today.
Reminded me of the toilet paper aisle circa 2020.
The cheaper eggs are generally gone by noon time anyways…
Damn, how am I gonna get my wedges?
With a mortgage apparently
chuck some potatoes in the garden, they grow like crazy and arent as annoying as other plants to grow.
BRB googling how to grow potatoes
Woolies green bag, compost, potato, cover. When it starts sprouting just layer up with mulch (sugar cane, straw, compost etc) until it reaches the top of the bag. After it flowers and the leaves start to turn yellow, harvest.
Bugger
KFC can include a voucher for 1 large fries redeemable when potatoes are back.
We have friends in the potato industry, they are horrible people.
Its one of the few fake backpacker industries aka the farms are 10mins from metro.
Local workers are forced to work less hours then visa workers, because of higher pay.
I could do a list of shitty things they do.
Why are you friends?
I bought a 2kg bag of unwashed potatoes for 50c last night - looks like I literally hit pay dirt ;-)
Is it politically correct to call them potatoes now? The potato is a vegetable but might identify as a fruit.
Some people identify as vegetables and fruit cakes
Soylent Green.
Solve the problem of covid deaths and food shortages with one stone!
The Solution is a command economy. The government sets prices to prevent avaricious capitalists from profiteering. A command economy is the only way to negate inflation.
Prices keep soaring because of free market capitalism. So, how are you people liking capitalism now?
I'm liking it a lot more than North Korea.
You are soo clueless about this whole situation, it’s damning.
"What would happen if the Communists occupied the Sahara?
Answer:
Nothing—for 50 years.
Then there would be a shortage of sand"
Thanks to free markets, potato farmers continue to plant even while fertiliser prices are soaring, because they know they can pass on the higher costs to the consumer.
You would have us starve commie
Ah, Rupert Murdoch's media empire spreading more fear and panic
I just think they're neat.
Doesn't bother me at all since fast food chips are rarely cooked properly.
Did someone say KFC?
Landline did a story recently as to why the spuds are going to be more expensive….
Hello fresh way ahead of it's time, they've been supplying only two tiny potatoes so you can make mash. Always had to add my own
If you have a house/unit with a garden, is it actually cost effective to grow some of these things yourself?
I remember when I was a kid, a pumpkin plant started growing all by it's self out of the side compost bin.
We just watered it, and it ended up producing a few huge pumpkins!
Profitable? No. They may end up cheaper after you factor in water, seeds, maintainance (time cost), fertiliser, soil etc.. but the main reason I grow my own vegetables is self sufficiency and quality, its nice not having to rely on the supermarket stuff for "fresh" produce when I can walk out to the back yard, pick a tomato and cut it up straight onto a sandwich or pick some snow peas and eat them straight off the vines, kids love to pick and eat the fruit too - much better for them than all the junk they normal would eat.
+1 If I ever get a garden again I'll be trying it for these reasons.
To prepare for planting season I stock up on those plant dirt bags they have at Bunnings and Aldi etc. Then I sprinkle on mystery combination poo pellets from Aldi that leaves the garden smelling awful for a week. Then I lay down weed matting. I grow seedlings in starter pots in sheltered area and then I pop them into the garden and hope for the best. I have a drip water system that does the rest.
My garden then becomes an experiment of survival of the fittest as the slugs and snails attack. The slugs and snails don't eat the mint or tomatoes but they do give them a test nibble.
Gardening is relaxing and each year I try new plants to see how they go. It's much more convenient to just buy a punnet of tomatoes and probably costs me a lot less money than what I put into the garden. However, the quality of the flavour from home grown tomatoes etc is exceptional. I once had these ugly deformed strawberries that were pea sized but they were exploding with flavour. That's what I find fun about the garden.
Slugs and snail = leave a container of beer out. Every morning remove the corpses of the drowned snails 'n slugs from the container. Rinse and repeat.
Sounds like a fun hobby if you get into it.
Similar to how I find repairing electronics / TVs and game consoles relaxing (almost therapeutic).
Reckon I'd be able to grow something like peas or tomatos in a pot on a balcony? (Mostly for the kids to get the experience of picking home grown fruit).
You never know until you try. Some plants are hardier on balconies than others. I'd recommend having something under the pots to keep them off the ground otherwise they might leave hard to remove marks on the balcony.
Just be aware that peas and tomatoes normally die after 1 season. As a kid I kept watering my dying tomato plants hoping to save them without realising that they don't survive the winter. A life lesson for the kids right there.
Our backyard keeps getting random potatoes growing
Bought a short expiry 2kg bag for $3.4 last week
No problems in WA
69c bag carrots
2 x lettuce 5bux
2x cauliflower 5bux
4kg spuds 3 bux
Broccoli 90c bunch
Spudshed wa
2002 called
Almost worth flying to WA to do the weekly veggie shopping
Been those prices ages
https://www.spudshed.com.au/spudshed-butler-weekly-specials/
4kg spuds $2.99 this week
I find it hilarious that out of food, clothing and shelter, it's all fine and well when shelter becomes unaffordable (with media reporting rises as good news) but when the other two basic human needs go up, it's terrible news. imho, it's bad news when any of these three are allowed to inflate. I say that as a home owner who doesn't fall for the illusion of "wealth" that comes from it.
Deep fried strips of cardboard dipped in oil - that's what Maccas chips taste and feel like to eat
Move to WA. Our produce wasn’t affected by the east coast floods etc. Lettuce remained about $3.
Dogs eat cats btw. Woof.