The melon market is full of lively trade at the moment. "It just shows you how reliant on the weather this market is. With these temperatures that are 10 degrees higher than usual, the market is jumping again. Besides this better demand, many more retailers now want to do shop offers with melons," says Leon van den Hombergh of Frankort & Koning.
"These weather conditions are having a big impact on the demand. The temperatures have been high in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe too, and this means the consumption is good everywhere. When it gets warmer the melon sales multiply three to five times. This is good sales. We are receiving melons from Costa Rica, Honduras and Brazil, but the volumes are not even that high. The big advantage is that stocks aren't heaping up. Everything that comes in is picked up immediately."
The price of watermelons is around 75 cents at the moment. The yellow melons are sold for around 9 Euro for 10 kilos. The sales price of Galias is around 8.50 and the price of the Canteloupe melons is around 7.50 Euro. "These are nice prices, but we shouldn't forget where we come from," says Leon. "We still had rock bottom prices in January and two good weeks doesn't fix the season. Last year we had a revival in January and then had very bad weather with low prices in this period. It's the opposite this year."
Traditionally the Galia melons are the most popular in the Benelux market, the Charentais melons is favoured in France and the yellow melons do well on the German market. But Leon believes there are some necessary developments. "The Piel de Sapo melons are becoming more well known outside of the Spanish market. Watermelons are also starting to participate in November and the convenience product is occupying an increasingly large space in the melon market."
When asked about his expectations for the coming weeks, the commercial director responded: "It will be a number of weeks until Spain joins the market. With a late Easter ahead, we will have an interesting few weeks. We will probably have one or two difficult weeks as well. The weather can change at any time. But at least we have these good few weeks."
For more information:
Leon van den Hombergh
Frankort & Koning
Venrayseweg 126
5928 RH Venlo
Tel: +31 (077) 389 72 72
Fax: +31 (077) 382 61 34
www.frankort.nl
