“Spanish tomatoes are getting the upper hand”

In november, Spanish and Dutch tomatoes traditionally come to the market at the same time. “Currently, Spanish tomatoes are getting the upper hand, and Dutch supply is decreasing significantly. This is always an exciting moment. I expect most retail customers will switch to Spanish product from next week,” says Ger Kingma, responsible for the import of Spanish tomatoes at Hagé International.

“The weather has been very bad in Almería this week and, combined with a decrease in the Dutch supply, expectations are that prices will rise sharply,” Kingma continues. According to the buyer, the supply of Spanish loose and vine tomatoes is very stable, but Morocco is becoming an increasingly large competitor for smaller types, such as cherry and cherry plum tomatoes. “Several years ago, these were luxury articles, now they are commodities.”

“We are personally very selective in the strains we import. We have started a quality line, for which we only buy good-quality, flavourful products. That is why we consciously choose not to import every cherry tomato strain. You can only sell a product that does not taste good once,” Kingma concludes. He also sees the organic production increasing sharply in Spain. “This is driven by demand from German retailers, and horticulturalists in Almería are trying to anticipate that. However, I personally think the organic hype is being blown out of proportion slightly by the media, and that people talk about organic more than that they actually cultivate organic.”