Varieties
Russet, red, yellow, white, fingerling: how variety moves price
Russets carry the US potato market, about 70 percent of planted acres, so they set the reference price and the other varieties are read against them. Reds, yellows, whites and fingerlings are smaller, fresher markets that turn faster and can swing harder, and russets are graded by carton count while round reds and yellows are graded Size A and Size B.
Updated Jul 10, 2026
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Variety sets both the price level and the way a potato trades, and russets dominate on volume. Russets are about 70 percent of US planted acres, by USDA's Economic Research Service, and they are the storage crop, the baker and the fry potato. Reds, yellows, whites and fingerlings split the rest into smaller, fresher markets that move on their own logic. The variety on a line is one of the first things that sets its price.
Russets carry the volume
- Columbia Basin
- San Luis Valley
- Idaho
- Wisconsin
The russet is the reference potato. It stores for months, it fills the cartons that foodservice buys by the count and it anchors the national market the other varieties are read against. The russet chart above lines up the growing origins on one benchmark pack so they compare like with like. Within russets, cultivar matters. The Norkotah matures early and shows up in August and September, filling the tail of the older Burbank storage, while the Russet Burbank is the late, long-storing classic that holds deep into the next summer. Deep supply and steady demand make russet pricing the least jumpy of the varieties, which is exactly why it is the baseline.
Reds and yellows are smaller and choppier
- California
- Florida
- Red River Valley
- Wisconsin
- Virginia
Reds and yellows are a fraction of the acres, and thinner markets move harder. Yellow demand has grown fast at retail and reds concentrate in foodservice and specific cuisines, so a shift in a narrow slice of buyers, or one origin coming up short, can swing a red or yellow price more sharply than the same event moves russets. The yellow chart above is that market by origin. There is a grading wrinkle worth knowing. Russets are size-graded by count, the number in a 50 lb carton, while round reds and yellows are graded as Size A, the larger table size, and Size B, the smaller. Read a russet quote by its count and a round quote by its size, because they are not the same yardstick.
Whites, long whites and fingerlings
Whites and long whites are regional table types, big in the East and on the coasts, used fresh and for chips. Fingerlings are a niche premium market, small elongated potatoes that mostly show up at retail and on restaurant menus rather than in bulk foodservice. None of these carries the volume of russets, so their quotes are thinner and can step around more. Keep each variety mentally separate: a move in yellows says little about where russets are, and the reverse.
The Russet Report reports each variety's prices as USDA publishes them, naming the pack and size each is quoted on, and does not forecast which way a variety will move.