"Quality of Moroccan soft fruit greatly improved"

Soft fruit is currently doing well for this time of the year. According to Gerrit de Vlieger from Groothandel Vrijders based in Brussels, things are doing better now than during the holidays, "At Christmas there was too much supply on the market and there was some talk of quality issues. Fortunately, that is no longer the case, although the market is not doing as well as it was last year at this time. This mainly has to do with the fact that Spain started the season earlier."

The trader expects the market to recover within a few weeks, "The Spanish season will obviously end earlier and then there may be shortages. Also, demand for soft fruit will increase as we near Valentine's Day and Easter." Currently, Vrijders has a lot of products from Morocco, which they mainly get via Driscolls, "What is striking is that Moroccan soft fruit has immensely improved over the years. If you compare the quality with that of five years ago, it is much better now."