Demand for Processed Potato Products and Processing Quality Potato Tubers in India

Potato processing in India has shown a tremendous growth in the recent past, creating a proportionate increase in demand for processing quality potatoes. Reliable annual demand estimates of processing quality potato tubers in India were not available; hence, the current study was undertaken to provide such estimates. The study was based on a survey of 442 households in the state Maharashtra in India, which was regarded to be representative for India in the consumption of processed potato products. The annual expenditure on potato products during 2006–2007 in Maharashtra was estimated to be INR 5,254 million (€ 93.82 million), which was equivalent to 28,148 Mg of physical processed potato products and 83,333 Mg of processing quality potato tubers (0.38% of national potato production during 2006–2007, i.e. 22.09 million Mg). When the estimates were generalised to a national level, the requirement of processing-quality potato tubers in 2006–2007 was equal to 4.04% of national potato production. The forecasted annual demand of potato products in Maharashtra during 2011–2012 was 75,375 Mg and the corresponding demand of processing quality potato tubers was 230,760 Mg (0.75% of the estimated national potato production during 2011–2012, i.e. 30.89 million Mg). When generalised at national level, the demand of processing quality potato tubers during 2011–2012 was found to be 8% of the estimated national potato production.