Kickoff Portuguese season at Mother Nature with lettuce

Next week the first supply of Portuguese lettuce of Mother Nature will arrive in the Netherlands. Friday, 15 April the first iceberg lettuce, Romaine lettuce, Lollo rosso, oak leaf lettuce and frisée lettuce are unloaded for wholesalers and exporters in the Netherlands and shipped for Scandinavian customers. This will be followed this month by a supply of two or three times a week, and from May, Portuguese product will be supplied to the Netherlands every weekday.

“Seed for all types of lettuce is supplied by known, Dutch seed breeders. The plants are grown in Portugal and then transplanted and cultivated under supervision of cultivation supervisors and Mother Nature’s own people from the Netherlands,” John Voogd explains. “Because everything is taken care of in-house, we also have people who will carry out the harvests from the Netherlands. Besides, we will also use locals in training. We are currently happy with the growth and expect to supply a beautiful, healthy and fresh product soon.”

“Transport will also be performed completely in-house in order to guarantee reliability of supply. Because we also took transport into our own hands, we will be able to guarantee supply after order as well, excluding circumstance beyond our control. But essentially the product is ordered on day one by the customer, on day two it is harvested and shipped at the end of that day, and on day four it is delivered in the Netherlands. Supply projections can be determined fairly accurately at least fourteen days before harvest.”

Besides the types of lettuce Mother Nature also expects supply of napa cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, oxheart cabbage and iceberg lettuce from May until June. The company has supply, besides the products cultivated in-house, coming from Portugal such as carrot, leek, oxheart cabbage, broccoli, strawberry, cherry and citrus, both for the fresh market and the juice sector.