Potato Harvest 2026. It All Starts in the Field

The 2026 potato harvest is now underway. It is one of the most important periods of our year – the time when the results of many months of farmers’ hard work make their way from the fields to MK Agro. Over the coming months, thousands of tonnes of potatoes from this year’s harvest will be transformed into finished products for our customers in Poland and abroad.

For us, however, the harvest is about much more than sourcing raw material. It marks the beginning of another production cycle designed to provide our customers with potatoes of the same consistently high quality, regardless of the season, with 100% supply reliability for the next 360 days.

We don’t just buy raw material. We are involved in growing it.

At MK Agro, our cooperation with farmers begins as early as spring, with the first fieldwork. We work directly with trusted local growers and build long-term relationships with them. All our partners are GLOBALG.A.P. certified and have the necessary experience, scale of cultivation and technical resources.

We also provide our growers with certified seed potatoes sourced from recognised European producers, including HZPC, Norika, Solana and Europlant. The seed potatoes are provided as an advance under the contract, while growers receive a guarantee that the contracted crop will be purchased. Our contracts are signed well in advance and at an agreed price, helping to reduce the risks associated with market fluctuations.

That is why our approach is best summed up by one principle: We don’t just buy raw material. We are involved in growing it.

Our Quality Department also works closely with farmers throughout the growing season, monitoring crops according to clearly defined and standardised criteria. As a result, quality control does not begin on the production line – it begins in the field.

Gerona – a new variety and the next step in developing our crops

Together with our partners, we are also developing the cultivation of a new potato variety – Gerona.

It is a young, modern variety that caught our attention primarily because of its excellent taste, but also because of its interesting agronomic characteristics. One of these is its relatively low nitrogen requirement.

The production of nitrogen fertilisers is a carbon-intensive process, so reducing their use can indirectly contribute to lowering the carbon footprint of potato production.

Together with our partners, we want to develop solutions that combine three key elements: excellent taste, high-quality raw material and more responsible use of resources. This is also part of MK Agro’s broader approach to sustainable agriculture. Another piece of the puzzle is the growing share of our potatoes coming from farms that use regenerative agricultural practices.

Straight from the field to MK Agro

During the potato harvest, the pace of work increases significantly. Throughout the intake period, we operate 24 hours a day to ensure that potatoes from our partner farms are received efficiently. As soon as they arrive, the potatoes undergo their first selection and are sorted by size.

Our raw material intake line is equipped with, among other things, a haulm and soil separator and an optical sorter, which removes green potatoes, stones and other foreign materials. Every delivery is inspected before the potatoes are sent for further storage or processing.

The scale of the operation is significant. MK Agro can receive around 27 deliveries of raw material per day, with each delivery weighing approximately 25 tonnes on average.

This means that during the busiest part of the harvest season, around 675 tonnes of potatoes can pass through our intake facility every day.

More than 38,000 tonnes of potatoes under one roof

The harvest season lasts for a limited period, but our customers need MK Agro products 12 months a year. That is why our own storage infrastructure is one of the key elements of our operation.

MK Agro has storage facilities with a total capacity of more than 38,000 tonnes of raw material.

We have around 20,000 dedicated potato storage boxes. They are kept in our modern storage facility, equipped with pressure chambers that enable the ventilation of potatoes received directly from the fields.

Carefully controlled storage conditions allow us to maintain the required quality parameters of the potatoes for many months. As a result, raw material from this year’s harvest will continue to be supplied to our production lines long after the harvest itself has finished.

From harvest to finished product

The harvest is an important, but not the only, part of a much longer process.

We start by selecting the right farms and potato varieties. We supply certified seed potatoes. We work with farmers throughout the growing season. We inspect the raw material during harvesting and intake. We sort it and store it under controlled conditions before gradually sending it to production.

Only then are the potatoes washed, prepared, portioned, vacuum-packed and steam-cooked before eventually making their way to restaurants, hotels, catering companies, food manufacturers and retail chains. Today, MK Agro has a production capacity of approximately 40,000 tonnes of finished products per year.

So when we look at the harvest taking place today, we see much more than another crop. We see thousands of tonnes of future products and thousands of deliveries that will reach our customers over the coming year.

From the field, through storage and production, all the way to the finished product – the entire process serves one purpose: to ensure that MK Agro quality always remains the same. The highest.