For now, many processors may be protected from higher prices because of annual supply contracts with growers. Most are paying around US$5.25 per hundred pounds, said Debbie Friday, who tracks prices for the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service.
Procter & Gamble Co, the maker of Pringles potato chips, and Frito-Lay don't expect any shortage among their suppliers, according to spokeswomen for the companies.
Potato buyers may not be protected for long, growers and econ-omists said.
"As companies run out of their contracted potatoes, and have to buy on the open market, they'll get pinched," said Benny Click, a potato grower in Castleford, Idaho.
Scott Schuppert, a broker at Potato Services Inc in Edmore, Michigan, said he may not be able to fill his contracts to supply 72,500 tonnes to Frito-Lay and other chipmakers.
"Right now is as cheap as they are going to be," Schuppert said. The spot price for a 45kg bag was US$12.50 on Oct. 30, up US$1 from four days earlier, he said.
Wise Foods' Molnar expects to pay as much as US$26 million to buy the 900 tonnes of round whites he bought last year, a cost increase of about 13 percent.
To make up any shortfall in contracted supply may cost US$8 a bag or more, he said. Last year, he picked up extra spuds for US$3 a bag. It takes 45kg of white potatoes to make 12kg of potato chips.
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