Berlin: Record harvest sparks mass giveaway of free potatoes
by novaRom on 1/31/2026, 7:15:52 PM
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/31/record-harvest-berlin-giveaway-potatoes
Comments
by: novaRom
Fun facts from Germany:<p>- Fresh Aldi potatoes are like 0.5 Euro per 1 Kilogram - basically the same price as 25 years ago when Euro currency was introduced<p>- Our national TV channel now shows a great collection of "potato recipes" videos on demand on its main page<p>- Price of McDonalds/BurgerKing fries is around 4 Euro, and 5-6 Euro as a street food<p>- Crisps like Pringles are like 15 Euro per 1 Kilogram (a typical 2.50 Euro for 175gm pack)
1/31/2026, 8:52:27 PM
by: Flavius
This is a massive missed opportunity for financialization. We need a 3x Leveraged Bull Potato ETF immediately. Tokenize the crop, lock it in a vault and trade futures against the harvest. Why feed people for free when we could create artificial scarcity and pump the price 10x by next week?<p>McDonald’s fries pricing suggests the market has already priced in a massive supply squeeze. They are generating better margins on a sliced potato than the Central Banks get when they print fiat.
1/31/2026, 7:58:34 PM
by: solatic
> “There were pictures of huge mountains of ‘earth apples’,” she recalled, using the word Erdäpfel, an affectionate term for the potato sometimes used by Berliners<p>Fun fact: the Hebrew translation of potato, תפוח אדמה, is the portmanteau of "earth" (אדמה) and "apple" (תפוח).<p>If you should ever be so fortunate as to have too many potatoes, see if you can shred them with a food processor and combine with onion, egg, salt, and pepper to make potato kugel, which freezes exceptionally well.
1/31/2026, 7:54:54 PM
by: scirob
It's good they didn't flood the market and tank the price.<p>It's real btw. I got a whole wagens worth and distributed amongst my neighbors
1/31/2026, 8:09:09 PM
by: Animats
The US has a soy glut and a corn glut, and Germany has a potato glut. What to do with all those carbs? Feed cattle?
1/31/2026, 8:45:55 PM
by: yorwba
Previously: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46618544">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46618544</a>
1/31/2026, 7:57:24 PM
by: dr_dshiv
Weird abundance problems. Should we get used to it?
1/31/2026, 7:42:56 PM