
Why Potatoes? The Surprisingly Profitable OSRS Staple
Old School RuneScape is famous for its grind, and the path to riches can be as epic as slaying a dragon—or as humble as digging up a potato. Many players overlook potatoes as a viable OSRS money making method, dismissing them as beginner food with no real value. But the truth? These spuds are a hidden goldmine when processed correctly. With minimal requirements, low competition, and an easy learning curve, potato farming and cooking is a money-making method that’s ideal for both new players and casual veterans.
In this guide, we’ll cover everything: where to find potatoes, how to efficiently gather them, the cooking steps needed to transform them into high-value food items, the exact GP margins you can expect, and some optimization tricks to maximize your hourly profit. Whether you’re a skill-focused player or just looking for a break from combat, potatoes might just become your next gold-making obsession.

The Potato Path: From Field to Fortune
At its core, this money-making method follows three simple steps:
- Gathering Raw Potatoes – Either loot them from specific OSRS fields or buy them cheap from the Grand Exchange.
- Cooking into Baked Potatoes – Using the Cooking skill to bake them.
- Upgrading to Potato with Butter – Adding butter for increased healing value and better selling prices.
It’s a beginner-friendly method that can be scaled up with better Cooking levels, higher efficiency routes, and GE flipping strategies.
Requirements: What You’ll Need to Start
One of the best things about this OSRS money-making method is that it has very low requirements. Even new accounts can get started almost immediately.
Skills
- Cooking Level 7 – Required to bake potatoes.
- Cooking Level 39 – Required to make potatoes with butter.
- Optional: 10 Cooking – To avoid burning baked potatoes with a cooking gauntlets boost, but you can get started earlier.
Items & Equipment
- Access to a Range or Cooking Fire – The Catherby Range, Lumbridge Castle Range, and Hosidius Kitchen are popular spots.
- Potato Seed (Optional) – If you want to farm your own potatoes.
- Buckets of Milk – For churning into butter.
- Churn Access – Found in several dairy farms like in Lumbridge or south of Falador.
Quests
- None Required – This is one of the few OSRS money-making methods you can do without quest progression.
Step 1: Gathering Raw Potatoes
Your first task is acquiring a large stockpile of raw potatoes. This can be done in two main ways: looting from potato fields or buying from the Grand Exchange.
Looting Potatoes
There are several potato fields in OSRS where you can gather unlimited potatoes for free:
- Draynor Village Potato Field – Located just west of Draynor Village, near the pig pen. Great for new players.
- Rimmington Potato Field – South-west of Falador, quiet and often empty.
- Catherby Farm – Convenient if you plan to cook them immediately at the nearby range.
- Taverley Potato Patch – Close to a bank and cooking range for quick processing.
Pro Tip: Just buy them off the GE.

Buying from the Grand Exchange
If you want to skip gathering and go straight to cooking for higher hourly profit, buying raw potatoes from the GE is a great option. Prices fluctuate, but raw potatoes are often dirt cheap, allowing for a healthy margin after cooking upgrades.

Step 2: Cooking Baked Potatoes
Once you have your raw potatoes, it’s time to bake them. This is where the Cooking skill comes into play.
How to Bake Potatoes
- Take your raw potatoes to a cooking range or fire.
- Use the “Cook” option on the potato.
- At Cooking level 7, you’ll unlock the ability to make baked potatoes.
- Store them in your bank or inventory for the next step.
Best Cooking Locations for Efficiency:
- Hosidius Kitchen – Reduced burn rate and bank nearby.
- Catherby Range – Right next to a bank and potato farming spots.
- Lumbridge Castle – Free and accessible for new accounts.
Profit Tip: At this stage, your profit per potato increases. Even baked potatoes alone can sell for more than raw ones, but the real money comes from upgrading them further.

Step 3: Making Potato with Butter
This is where you turn good profit into great profit. Potatoes with butter heal more, making them popular with players training combat or engaging in PvM. The GE demand is steady, and margins can be surprisingly high.
How to Make Butter
- Acquire buckets of milk.
- Use a churn (Lumbridge, Yanille, or south of Falador are good locations).
- Churn milk into cream, then into butter.
Alternatively, just Buy it from the GE. Prices are currently at 23gp a Pat. Just buy it!

Making the Final Product
- Use butter on a baked potato to create a potato with butter.
- This requires Cooking Level 39.
- Store and sell via the GE for maximum margins.
Profit Breakdown: GP Per Hour
Prices fluctuate, but as of recent trends:
- Raw Potato – ~60 – 70 GP each
- Baked Potato – ~210-220 GP each
- Potato with Butter – ~420-430 GP each
If gathering potatoes manually:
- Low Level: 125k–200k GP/hour
- Buying from GE and upgrading: 250k–500k GP/hour depending on margins
Optimization Tips
- Buy in Bulk: The GE lets you stockpile raw potatoes during low-price periods.
- Use Hosidius Kitchen: Lower burn rates mean fewer losses.
- Bank Runs: Keep cooking stations close to a bank for quick deposit and withdrawal cycles.
- GE Flipping: Monitor potato and butter prices to sell at market peaks.
- Stack Other Gathering: Collect other items like onions or cabbages on the way to potato patches.
Why This Method Works
The potato method thrives on three OSRS economic realities:
- Steady Demand for Low-Level Food – New players and PvM grinders constantly need cheap food.
- Low Entry Requirements – Almost anyone can do it, but few actually bother.
- Multiple Upgrade Stages – Turning raw potatoes into baked potatoes, and then into potatoes with butter, adds significant GP value without much effort.

Conclusion: The Humble Potato Empire
While it may not have the thrill of high-risk bossing or rare drop hunting, potato-based OSRS money making is an underappreciated, low-stress, and surprisingly profitable method. It’s accessible to almost everyone, can be scaled to suit your playtime, and offers a satisfying loop of gathering, cooking, and selling. Whether you’re a skiller, a merchant, or just looking for a quirky new gold-making method, the OSRS potato path is worth a try.
With the right setup, a dash of market awareness, and a pinch of patience, you can turn these humble tubers into a steady stream of GP—and maybe even corner the potato market.