“The situation on the strawberry market is currently very bad. Demand is very high, but prices are incredibly low. Prices for a 500-gramme punnet of good strawberries are between €1 and €1.20. That’s historically low for the time of year,” says Frank Royen of Welroy Fruit. “Prices for strawberries have been dropping for about three weeks. We didn’t even have a recovery around Easter.”
According to Royen, there wasn’t an excessive volume on the market about a week ago. “There could now still be some production as a result of the warm weather, but that wasn’t really the case the week before. The quality of the strawberries is very good this year. We had some cold nights recently, that’s to the benefit of the fruit’s quality,” Frank continues. The grower expects to be able to harvest the first strawberries from tunnels soon.
“Despite the fact that it’s currently not going well on the strawberry market, the popularity of strawberries is still increasing. Every year, we see an increase, and that’s wonderful. Consumers eat more and more soft fruit, and that’s seen reflected in demand. Besides strawberries, we also have raspberries, but these are normally much later than strawberries. The first raspberries are expected within less than a month,” Frank concludes.
For more information:
Frank Royen
Welroy Fruit
Langenakkerstraat 132A
3830 Wellen, Belgium
+32 477 74 12 59
Royenfrank@hotmail.com
www.welroyfruit.be