Australians are being hit with a potato shortage, with growers having experienced what they say has been one of the toughest seasons in a decade. 

Extreme weather is affecting crop yields and creating widespread shortages in South Australia, which grows about 80 per cent of the nation’s potatoes.

It has led to a reduced supply on supermarket shelves.

Mitolo Family Farms is Australia’s biggest potato producer with crops in the Riverland, Murray Mallee and Adelaide Plains regions.

It grows and supplies more than 200,000 tonnes of market-washed potatoes all year round, but has been facing difficulties in recent months.

According to today’s Bureau of Meteorology’s drought report, parts of South Australia saw some of the lowest rainfall on record between January 1 to September 30.

Mitolo Family Farms Head of Marketing and Sales Josh Tselekidis said the season had been “one of the toughest in over 10 years”.

“A hot summer and late-season heat raised soil temperatures, followed by cold, wet, and windy conditions, resulted in lower volumes and more defects such as cold cracking, harvest damage, skin staining, and prominent lenticels,” he said.

“While staining is only cosmetic, overall quality and marketable supply have been affected.”

Coles and Woolworths have notices up across some of their stores, alerting customers to the shortage and changes to appearance of potatoes.

The supermarket giants attributed the shortage to a natural dip caused by the seasonal transitional windows and expect supply to be refilled in the coming weeks.

Tselekidis said he expected the low potato supply to last for another month, despite the upcoming season harvest.

“There’s been widespread shortages from late-August all the way through to now and will continue for at least another three or four weeks,” he said.