“Dutch cherry season had hardly any slumps”

The Dutch cherry season is already nearing its end. Peter Visser of the wholesaler’s of the same name in Krimpen a/d IJssel, the Netherlands, has made the Dutch cherry his speciality, and he looks back at a good season. “Demand has just been good. At auction, we only had a small slump during one day, at the start of the school holidays. In other years there have been slumps towards 2.50 euro, but this season prices remained stable constantly, at a level between 4.50 and 6 euro.”

“For growers who didn’t have covered cherries the season ended early. It was a good season for covered cherries. I want to put the spotlight on Merchant. Those had a superb flavour this year. The season started great, because of the hot weather. The Kordia cherries varied greatly between batches. We had few cherries from abroad. For example, Belgium had few cherries, and that was advantageous to us. I also managed to sell quite a few greenhouse cherries to exporters during the transition to the outdoor season. These were beautifully tight and black as well.”

“The season is ending now. I can still pick out a few good batches at auction. I’m purely concerned with flavour. That way, you can make a profit as well, but the customers have to be certain that you have good cherries. Fortunately there were very few truly bad batches this year, and everything sold fairly well. But it’s all about the rate of turnover. Cherries have to be picked, sorted and immediately sold,” Peter says. He therefore has his own opinion about all of the methods for cooling cherries. “Especially large cherry growers can do all kinds of things, but I’m absolutely not fond of water baths. Cherries are warm when picked, after a water bath they turn hard as rock, and then they become limp during transport. I can’t get excited about that!”