"Stijn van de Voorde: "Cooler weather will increase consumption"

"Average price Brussels sprouts 90 cents not really hopeful"

Although the weather is still beautiful the harvest of Brussels sprouts has started. Grower Stijn van de Voorde from Leest in Mechelen expect a level of top production within a few weeks. "At the moment we are busy with the first volumes and these were auctioned today, 27th of September. The volumes will now increase every week. Now the weather is still warm, but when it will is a little cooler then it will be of more interest to the trade and the consumer."

Low middle price
According to him the quality of the products looks promising. "There is slightly less yield because of the drought this Summer, but apart from that I expect a good season. Van de Voorde has an area of 2 HA growing Brussels sprouts and supplies these to Veiling BelOrta. He looks at the season with mixed feelings. "To-day the middle price was 90 cents and that is not really good. That is the price for cleaned-by-hand Brussels sprouts and that is not hopeful. Uncleaned this would be a different story" he anxiously mentions.

"Last week we talked about prices of round Euro 2.00 and that is quite different. The difference, of course, is that it is a lot warmer. People do not think of Brussels sprouts at 20 degrees. For the time being we are not pushing the harvesting, we must just wait a while for lower temperatures and then, hopefully, consumption will increase somewhat." At grower van de Voorde the early variety Divina is being harvested at the moment. According to Stijn the area of Brussels sprouts remained the same for the fresh market this year and increased somewhat for the industry. Normally seen this should have no influence because that is on contract, but it still has an interaction. Hopefully it will become a little colder, then the price will go up again."

Publication date: Tue 1 Oct 2013