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A coastal hospitality venue has taken matters into its own hands to recover from the national potato chip shortage and reel customers back in.
Key points:
- Hospitality venues are facing chip shortages as potato farmers are affected by wet weather
- A Seaspray fish and chip shop is offering sweet potato fries and have purchased their own chip maker
- Potato farmers say harvests have been delayed but the warmer weather is allowing crops to recover
Months of wet weather in the eastern states has delayed the re-planting of potato crops, leading to limited chip supplies across the country.
Seaspray General Store, which doubles as a fish and chip shop, has been offering sweet potato chips, spuds, and potato cakes as alternatives, and the owners have purchased their own chip-making machine to curb the problem.
The store's owner Fiona Lawrence said customers had been understanding of the issue.
"We've got a lot of customers who are still coming in expecting chips," she said.
"But when we tell them we've got sweet potato fries instead, and we explain the situation, they're actually quite receptive."
Ms Lawrence said the shortage would likely last until June, and hoped there was enough staff to handle the chip-making.
"All the stores still have potatoes and you can buy potatoes, so we can buy them in bulk and chip them," she said.
"We're hoping that we can cope.
"It's all going to be very much trial and error. It's either going to fly or it's not or we'll have to pivot away again and look at something else."
The store has been forced to ration its sporadic supply of chips, changing its portion sizes to accommodate more customers.
It's one of the only venues selling chips in a town of about 2,000 people, with this number growing over the summer period as tourists flock to Ninety Mile Beach.
"We went from a family to a large to a minimum of chips," Ms Lawrence said.
"That was quite a challenge too because you wanted to give everybody chips so you had to ration them out."
Why only chips?
Some people may be confused as to why potato cakes and spuds are still available to purchase and why the shortage is specific to chips.
In the Latrobe Valley, Thorpdale potato farmer Stuart Jennings says specific potatoes are used for chip production.
"Well, it's horses for courses. Essentially, different varieties work better for different things," he said.
"Process growers will be contracted to grow a variety for the factory to produce the chips, whereas a fresh market grower will be growing different varieties that are better suited for cooking in the oven or whatever you want to do in your kitchen."
Although the wet weather has slowed down harvesting, Mr Jennings says the crops are recovering quickly.
"The crops around Thorpdale in the last couple of weeks, we've had a bit more warmer weather, and they've taken off a bit now," he said.
Mr Jennings estimated that it could take about six months for chip production to return to normal.
"It's just a matter of time as they're catching up with orders, getting them through the factories to cut the chips and get them out to customers," he said.
"It's it's just a bit of a backlog at the moment."