“Destroying top fruit is very last option”

Lowette continues: “Furthermore, you have to see it in perspective. When looking at those photographs, it seems like an enormous amount. But on the other hand: when 100,000 kilograms lie in a field somewhere, it cannot be compared to the total volume up for intervention. Fortunately, destruction has not happened often in recent years, because industry prices were often higher than intervention prices.”

Several things can be done with the top fruit taken from the market. “The idea is to organise it at the cheapest cost price possible, for the cultivator has to make some profit from the intervention money. Keeping that in mind, there are four possibilities. The first and best option is, of course, giving the fruit to charity, free of charge. This also happens, but, logistically, it cannot always be organised in order to solve the problem, for an enormous amount of kilograms are concerned during the harvesting weeks.” If the top fruit cannot be given to charity, there are other solutions. “The first is feed. This is naturally our first choice, because it costs next to nothing. But the pigs and cows cannot eat too many apples, so it is a limited solution. The second option is bringing the harvest to biogas plants, but that of course means additional costs. Besides, the capacity of biogas plants is limited, so that is also not a complete solution. All in all, we use multiple solutions, and try to use the destruction as a last resort. We want to use that means as little as possible, but sometimes there are no other possibilities.”

Lowette expects the problem with the top fruit surplus will solve itself in due time. “Right now, it is still very difficult. The apples lying on the land now used to be sold to Russia. Additionally, we have competition from Poland, which regularly causes pressure on the industry price. We are currently in a transitional phase, in which we have to start cultivating different strains to export to new markets. That is what we are working on now.”