Demand from abroad
He indicates that the demand from home and abroad is strong.
"This is mainly northern Europe, countries like England and Germany are showing interest. Normally they are self-sufficient for a while, but now they have less of their own production and they are looking towards Belgium and the Netherlands. This means that the export season will likely look different to that of last year. "If you think logically there will be extra demand on our market due to their smaller volumes. It should benefit the price. We also already have our usual customers like Scandinavia and France. So we can't complain about sales. We can be positive."
Good prices
All the market conditions put together make for a good price at the moment. "The average price of all sortings was 3.30 Euro per kilo today. If you look at the better sortings, the most expensive are just short of six Euro per kilo. That's pretty high."
Year round supply
Jan says that they have been asking the retail to sell Belgian strawberries in the autumn. "There is slowly movement in this, multiple supermarkets have promised to join in this autumn. There may even be strawberries available at the Belgian retail all year round soon."
For more information:
Jan Engelen
Veiling Hoogstraten
Loenhoutseweg 59
Hoogstraten - Belgium
Tel: +32 3 3400233
Fax: +32 3 3147844
www.hoogstraten.eu