"Cucumber prices have risen by 130%", "Cucumber prices are exploding in Germany" - these are just two of the headlines featured in the media this week. For the marketers, however, things seem to have relaxed again. A German distributor of fruits and vegetables certainly keeps his head: "Quantities are low now, it is already swinging back up again.There are more goods and prices are adjusting themselves. At one time cucumbers were going for one euro apiece in the auctions but it's not like that anymore! For next week, we predict normal levels again."
"In recent weeks, it was mostly prices from 65 to 70 cents, which is already very high for cucumbers," says the expert. "For us specifically, that was not a big deal. We just market what we have, and then I adapt to the market situation." Meanwhile, the situation has improved significantly.
Effects of the hot summer
"The situation is certainly due to the drought in August. If it is this hot, vegetable growth tends to decline and the plants put their energy into their foliage, so there were not enough cucumbers available. It was a problem in Germany, but also in the Netherlands and in Belgium, all of which has contributed to the market situation."
From customers and consumers, he expects a little bit of patience: "The weather is usually the reason for successes or problems in our industry. Many people forget that agriculture will always be dependent on the weather - with greenhouses or without. If you have a lot of sun and no rain, it is bad, but just rain and no sun is not good either! "Even protected cultivation in greenhouses is not the solution to all these problems. "Of course there is more control in greenhouse cultivation. Nutrients can be adapted, as can watering, and the sun shielded as much as possible, but even there we can not influence everything," he concludes.