Although Germany is known for preferring large sizes, Paul Heemels of Heemels Agro from Herkenbosch, the Netherlands, has noticed a trend towards smaller sizes. “While in the past, they asked four products for five kilos, they now prefer five or six tubers per box. It’s understandable, after all, why would a small family need a large tuber?”
Fortunately, each customer has their own wishes that can be responded to. Eight products for ten kilos are the largest tubers being traded. Six to sevens for ten kilos are mostly shipped to Belgium, Poland buys the smaller sizes, and tendency in Germany is six tubers for five kilos. Besides the fresh market, industry buys damaged celeriac or tubers that are too large for soup kits, for example. The right size is therefore very important in celeriac, and this is an important activity for Heemels Agro. “Our most important sales market is Germany, 70 per cent of our product is sent there. The remainder mostly finds its way to Poland and other Eastern European countries.” In addition to the trend for smaller celeriac, the origin of the products is also becoming increasingly important to buyers. Heemels Agro might physically be found in the Netherlands, they’ve been working with production regions in Germany since the mid 1990s, and as said before, this is their most important sales market as well. The ‘origin trend’ was therefore anticipated a while ago.
Reduced yields
Yields in 2018 were disappointing due to the dry summer. “The advantage is that sales aren’t problematic this year, particularly compared to the 2017 season. Yields were much higher than average back then.Moreover, a larger area had been planted, resulting in low prices throughout the season. It didn’t go well up to August and September 2018. Only with the new harvest did prices recover until October. Prices then remained stuck at that level.” Paul does expect prices to rise even more when the countries’ own harvest has been cleared. Inventories show that Poland and Germany will have shortages because they harvested much less, and this was less so the case in the Netherlands. “It varies greatly per region, the north of Poland had a better growing season than the south. But harvests are generally smaller than in average years.” Heemels Agro’s harvest wasn’t disappointing. “We were capable of irrigating, so that we could harvest good quality celeriac. We’re keeping track of the condition of the celeriac in storage nearly every week. Because we irrigated, there’s a chance of mould. We didn’t expect this, because this problem mostly occurs in wet years. That’s why we’re keeping a close eye on quality.”
Heemels Agro has controls the process from production to sales. The area consists of 50 hectares, and part of this is under contract. It’s no problem to find contract growers. “Other agricultural crops are less profitable, so growers tend to be willing to grow celeriac.” Finding plenty of suitable workers is a point of attention though, according to Paul. Processing celeriac requires a lot of manual labour. The celeriac is washed and sorted for size, cleaned, cut, polished and dried after the harvest or from storage so that the product has an optimum shelf life.
Your wish is our command
Packaging occurs as per the customer’s wishes. “That’s a matter of ‘your wish is our command.’ For retail, the celeriac is packed in crates or boxes of five or ten kilos. This packaging is chosen based on the customer’s wishes, so that the filled boxes can be placed directly on the shelves. Celeriac is packed in bags of ten kilos or in big-bags for the wholesaler’s market.”
Heemels Agro supplies celeriac year-round. Paul: “We sell part of the harvest straight from the fields, usually in the months of August and September and when the tubers are large enough. The majority of the harvest, however, is mechanically cooled and stored in our warehouse, so that we can supply year-round. The months of January until May/June are important months, that’s when the best celeriac is sold.”
Due to the disappearance of the auctions, pricing of celeriac has become much less transparent. Because of the service and focus on customers, Heemels Agro can count on a number of loyal customers. “Naturally, part of the customers switches easily, but fortunately part deliberately comes to us to buy their product. It’s a likeability factor. When you do everything properly and customers are satisfied, they don’t have to find someone else, as long as I stick to the price level on the market. That’s all I could ask for. When deciding prices, gut feelings play a large part. By calling some people, you’ll soon find out whether you’re right or not. The auction system was perfect as long as everyone was part of it, but that’s in the past now. The inventories done by the celeriac grower’s association regarding celeriac in storage is a good thing. Every grower wants to know whether they’ll get good prices. They also encourage members to report transactions, but that’s not done enough yet.”
Heemels Agro
Paul Heemels
Muytertweg 27
6075 AM Herkenbosch
T: 0475-531809
heemagro@planet.nl
www.heemelsagro.nl