Autumn has arrived in South Africa and temperatures have dropped, along with consumers’ taste for summer vegetables, while demand for soup vegetables is growing.
Coupled with a long Easter weekend in the middle of the month, which has drained household spending power for the rest of the month, general demand is low at the fresh produce markets.
Prices for lettuce have crashed, from R8 (€0.56) to R10 (€0.70) last week for a head of lettuce to R6 (€0.42) yesterday and today agents say they sell it for about R3 (€0.21). Boxes of lettuce, containing eight heads of lettuce, sold for approximately R56 (€3.92) last week and this week it is between R20 (€1.40) and R24 (€1.68).“The demand is low but produce keeps coming in. At our agency we have 2 000 boxes of lettuce in stock,” an agent told FreshPlaza at the close of the morning’s trading at Tshwane fresh produce market.
Rows upon rows of boxes of wilted lettuce are evident on the market floor. A box keeps for about four days, whereupon agents will sell it at basement prices, in an attempt to recuperate something for the grower, at least enough to cover packaging costs. As a final solution, unsold produce goes to pig farmers.
Demand for broccoli is also lower than usual and the high prices of the last few weeks are already a thing of the past.
However, the prices of soup vegetables like butternut, turnips and parsley are on the rise. Celery sells for approximately R20 (€1.40) a sleeve, turnips for an above average R7 (€0.49) or R8 (€0.56) a bundle. Parsley is now between R50 (€3.50) and R60 (€4.20) a box.
Gem squash, a favourite among white South African consumers, is in very short supply at the moment because not many farmers grow it. Therefore, it is known as a vegetable with seesaw prices – either very high or very low.
Bell peppers are doing well, with good supply on the markets. They are marketed in 4kg and 6kg boxes. Green bell peppers are the least expensive, with a recent high of R60 (€4.20) down to R25 (€1.75) per box, while the largest, brightest and blemish-free red bell peppers are sold for as high as R250 (€17.50) a box, down to between R70 (€4.90) and R100 (€7) for classes 2 and 3.
There has been an interesting change in consumption of bell peppers. Green bell peppers have always been widely used, but there was a reticence about red bell peppers, especially from black consumers, but under the influence of the large community of Africans from Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi and Zimbabwe there has been a marked increase in its consumption by black consumers. Not so for yellow bell peppers, though: these are still not bought by informal traders.
The approximately 3 million strong population of Africans from all over the continent residing in South Africa have also been responsible for an increased consumption of chillies, the hotter the better – specifically habañero and jalapeño chillies. Bossie Boshoff of Farmers Trust tells of a Nigerian couple who visit the market to buy a full bag of habañero chillies every two weeks for personal use.
Okra is another vegetable that has benefited from more cosmopolitan eating habits. It has long been eaten by South Africa’s Indian and Greek communities, but with the influx of West Africans it has become a strong commodity. “We sell 300 to 400 one kilogram boxes of okra every day,” says Boshoff. Other South Africans have also started to include okra in their diet.
Consumption of lettuce, cucumbers, broccoli and cauliflower has increased as well among black South Africans, due to a heightened awareness of its health benefits. Similarly, and as a result of the popularity of food programmes on television, white South Africans are eating much more fresh ginger and asparagus. South Africa’s strong vegetable production industry and wide climatic spectrum readily facilitate these changing trends in consumption.