Dutch blueberry season starts off with small sizes due to dry weather

The Dutch blueberry season has not started under the best of circumstances. "It could be better. The extreme weather conditions of the past few weeks mean the berries have not grown very large. A loss of size means a loss of volumes", says Sil Moonen of Berryfarm.nl. They cultivate berries in the provinces of Drenthe and Limburg in the Netherlands. They began bringing the first early varieties to market this month.

"All in all, it is a completely different season to that of last year. Then we began with an empty market due to the frost damage. Currently, the demand is not matching up with the supply. This always causes people to become nervous. Then, sometimes, unnecessary price reductions are implemented", says Sil. He is increasingly focusing on the German market in addition to the English market.

"The problem is that there are hardly any shortages anymore. Our window is from mid-August to the beginning of October. There has been growth in acreage over the past five years. Considering this, there is often an oversupply on the market. There is also an increasing number of seasons that overlap. If we do not have enough product, we fly berries in from Peru", says Sil.

It is, according to him, a new strategy to pack the fruit into supermarket packaging straight from the field. "If you hand-pick berries, the dew is, literally, still clinging to the fruit. Then you have a distinctive product. And soft fruit consumers are sensitive to quality. Our clients are enthusiastic about this. But try to transfer this to a large shop with thousands of products", explains Sil.