Not in the U.S. or in Ireland: This is the country where a farmer is giving away potatoes for free due to excess production

Germany is a country where the potato is a much-loved food. According to official data, citizens consume around 63 kg per year. Despite its popularity, farmers have generated a surplus in the last harvest that is overwhelming even its biggest fans.

This phenomenon has been dubbed Kartoffel-Flut (potato flood) due to the highest yield in 25 years. To get rid of all the stock, one farmer has created a potato dump in Berlin, inviting people from around the German capital to come to certain points to collect this product for free.

Those who will benefit most from this excess will be soup kitchens, homeless shelters, kindergartens, schools, churches, and non-profit organizations.

Even a Berlin Zoo has joined this “rescue mission,” collecting tons of potatoes that would otherwise have ended up in the trash. These will be used to produce biogas or feed the animals. Two truckloads have also been sent to Ukraine.

174 collection points

In total, 174 collection points have been set up in Berlin alone. Astrid Marz, a resident of the city, told The Guardian that she stopped counting at 150 potatoes: “I think I have enough to keep me and my neighbors going until the end of the year.”

This operation aims to release 4,000 tons of surplus generated by a potato producer in Leipzig when a sale was cancelled at the last minute.

When the news broke, many people thought it was fake: “At first I thought it was AI-generated fake news when I saw it on social media,” said Marz, a teacher. “There were pictures of huge mountains of ‘soil apples,’” he recalled. Currently, there are still around 3,200 tons of potatoes left to be distributed.

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