"Despite growing protective cultivation there is certainly still space for open ground strawberries"

Strawberries are fully available at the moment. "In the spring we were still slightly behind on the average production, but this has now been fully made up for. And with decent prices," says Marcel Biemans of CLTV Zundert, who sell strawberries via Cooperation Hoogstraten. "Due to the midsummer celebrations there was good demand from Scandinavia around the weekend, but it seems to be dropping out. Germany is mostly self sufficient with domestic production, so we are mainly working with Belgium and France at the moment. They have a good demand, although the temperatures for the market traders are a little too high to sell strawberries."

"At the moment the open ground strawberry cultivation, like the covered cultivation, is coming into full production, so this and next week the supply will be considerable. I expect the price to come under some pressure due to this, but you never know. I have been surprised by the trade before," says Marcel. "There may be slightly less strawberries on the market in a few weeks due to this accelerated ripening."

"Last week there was still a considerable price difference between the protected cultivation and open ground cultivation, but that difference is less now. On Saturday the better sortings of the protected cultivation were still leaving for over 2 Euro per pound. On Monday this was already less and we will have to wait and see how this develops. We can't predict it and we are largely dependent on the weather conditions."

Expanding into raspberries and blackberries is still a desire for CLTV Zundert. "We aren't that big in these products, but do see a rising demand. They fit well with strawberries, so we think it would be good to expand in these productions," says Marcel. "We have seen considerable growth in protected cultivation, both glass and foil, in recent years. We see a general shift to protected cultivation, as the trade is better at times. I believe there is certainly still space for the open ground strawberry cultivation over the coming years."

For more information:
Marcel Biemans
CLTV Zundert
Molenstraat 155
4881 GD Zundert
m.biemans@cltvzundert.nl
www.cltvzundert.nl