Origins
Near normalMinnesota potato prices
Shipping point FOB prices and shipment volume for Minnesota, USDA reports
Data through Sep 29, 2026 · source last checked Nov 4, 2026 · page revised Nov 3, 2026
Cite
- Big Lake / Central Minnesota
- USDA mostly / low-high range
About this data
- Source
- USDA AMS shipping point potato FOB reports (FV130) and Daily Movement (FV170)
- Series
- Potato FOB price at a benchmark variety, pack and size
- Basis
- FOB shipping point, low-high range
- Geography
- Minnesota
- Unit
- $/50 lb carton
- Last observation
- Sep 29, 2026
- Update frequency
- USDA reports on business days
$12.00-14.00/50 lb carton, 6% above the 5-yr median. Comparison midpoint: $13.00/50 lb carton.
Minnesota russets $12.00-14.00, 50 lb carton, held flat week over week through 2026-09-29. Prices stand 6% above the 5-yr median and have climbed 4.0% month over month and 10.6% year over year.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | $13.00/50 lb carton | $13.00/50 lb carton | 0.0% |
| Month over month | $13.00/50 lb carton | $12.50/50 lb carton | +4.0% |
| Year over year | $13.00/50 lb carton | $11.75/50 lb carton | +10.6% |
| vs 5-yr median | $13.00/50 lb carton | $12.25/50 lb carton | +6.1% |
Previous weeks
Week of Sep 24, 2026
Minnesota russets mostly $12.00-14.00, 50 lb carton, flat week over week. Month over month the market is up 6.1%, putting prices 6% above the 5-year median.
Week of Sep 11, 2026
Minnesota potatoes are mostly $12.00-14.00, 50 lb carton, through September 11. The midpoint has risen 50 cents on the week but fallen a dollar from a month ago. The level sits at the 5-year median.
An earlier week
Prices from Big Lake/Central Minnesota fell $0.50 on the week to $14.75 per 50 lb carton. Year-over-year the market has risen $3.75, though current levels remain 12% below the 3-year median.
About Minnesota potato prices
Minnesota's own origin, distinct from the Red River Valley to its northwest, covers growers around Big Lake and central Minnesota. It is a smaller red and yellow district: on this site about five-sixths of its recorded quotes are reds, the rest yellow, and it has never quoted a russet.
Packing here spreads across 50 lb sacks, 50 lb cartons and 2,000 lb bulk totes without one style dominating, with baled consumer bags behind them. As a fresh-and-storage red district, it fills some of the same calendar role as the Red River Valley but at a fraction of the volume, so it tends to be the thinner, more volatile of Minnesota's two red-potato origins on this site. Because the two districts are reported separately by USDA rather than combined, a mover in one does not necessarily say anything about the other; check both before reading a Minnesota-wide story into a single quote. See red and yellow for how this origin's prices sit against the rest of the country.
Against the national benchmark. The quotes on this page are Minnesota's alone. For the single figure the trade quotes as the market, potato prices today follows Idaho's 70-count russet carton per carton, per hundredweight, per pound and per potato, with the date of USDA's latest quote.
Season. Minnesota potatoes typically ship July through November, based on where USDA movement volumes concentrate over the year. Outside that window fresh shipping point quotes thin out, which is normal crop rotation, not a data gap.
Common questions
What is the current price of Minnesota potatoes?
Minnesota Size A reds in 50 lb cartons sold for $12.00-14.00/50 lb carton ($24.00-28.00/cwt, $0.24-0.28/lb) FOB at the shipping point on Sep 29, 2026, per USDA shipping point reports. The same day, Minnesota quoted Size A yellows in 50 lb cartons at $14.00-16.00/50 lb carton, Size A reds in 50 lb sacks at $10.00-12.00/50 lb sack and Size A reds in bulk totes at $16.00-20.00/cwt. These are wholesale prices for potatoes loaded at the packing shed, before freight, not grocery prices.
How do Minnesota potato prices compare with last year?
At range midpoints, the red Size A 50 lb carton is $13.00/50 lb carton, up 11% from $11.75/50 lb carton a year earlier and 6% above its 5-yr median of $12.25/50 lb carton for the date.
Why do Minnesota potato prices change?
Minnesota ships both fresh-dug and stored potatoes, most of them between July and November by USDA movement data, so its price follows how its own harvest comes in and how it overlaps the other districts shipping at the same time. In the 12 months to Sep 29, 2026, the red Size A 50 lb carton midpoint ran from $12.25/50 lb carton (Aug 24, 2026) to $15.25/50 lb carton (Aug 3, 2026), and it changed on 10 of its 41 report days; the biggest one-day move was -$1.00/50 lb carton on Aug 24, 2026. What moves potato prices covers the supply side in more depth.
How many potatoes does Minnesota ship?
USDA's Daily Movement reports logged 1.0 million cwt of fresh Minnesota potato shipments in the 12 months to Oct 30, 2026, across 84 report days. By type, that volume was 61% red, 25% yellow and 14% russet. The latest day on record, Oct 30, 2026, logged 11,475 cwt. A hundredweight (cwt) is 100 lb.