The Dutch blueberry season has started in good conditions. "The market is exceeding the supply. I've never experienced this in all of my years at the start of the season. The countries that produce before us have been affected by frost damage, like we have, and this means there are no stores and we're starting on an empty market," says grower Sil Moonen of Berryfarm.nl, who grow blueberries in Drenthe and Limburg and started the first early varieties on the market this month.
Moonen recently built these cooling cells to store extra volume. The project was realised by Voets en Donkers koeltechniek.
"The shortages are so big that blueberries are even being flown in from the United States, but I think they're taking Trump's advice to keep the best in the country, as the quality is no competition," says Sil. "The volumes in the Netherlands are also a lot lower. Due to the extremely warm weather many have become shrivelled, particularly in early varieties."
He focuses purely on the English market with his blueberries, but isn't able to supply his customers with the desired volumes at the moment. "Normally we immediately put the berries in the cooling cell, but it remains empty with these prices. It could lead to extreme shortages later in the season, the question is whether we'll have berries in September."
Although the berry consumption was going straight up in recent years, the growth has started to decline now, according to Sil. "The retail sales increase by 20% annually, but last year that growth was around 12%. I expect to reach the peak at some point." Another challenge is finding enough seasonal labourers to pick the berries. "The economy is going so well that people have a lot of alternatives. I wonder where we'll get the manpower from."
For more information:
Sil Moonen
Berryfarm.nl
Mortel 27
6088 AH Roggel
T: 0031 (0) 475-494727
F: 0031 (0) 475-491461
M:0031 (0) 6 532 88 523
sil@silmoonen.nl