It is currently quiet on the celeriac market. "During the start of the Corona measures, there was a brief revival due to the hoarding behavior at the supermarkets, after which sales fell again. In retail you can see volumes continue to rise, but there is a standstill in the catering and gastronomy sector. And quite a few celeriac's went to that sector," observes Luc Berden of Berden Agro.
"We have seen the market pick up slightly again since last week, but the price should be higher. This year, there are not too many celeriacs in stock, so once the market is up and running, I expect the stock to decrease quickly," the grower continues.
"Quality differences are also big, the preservability of some batches is vulnerable. In addition, stocks in other countries are quite low or even depleted. So if the market resumes after this period, I do expect a rapidly declining stock that could lead to some shortages in the market, because the new harvest will be delayed this year."
Spring was very erratic: at first much too wet, then a few times there was a lot of night frost, then warmer and sunnier, but poor weather with a northeast wind. In short, cultivation will not be extremely early this year. By then I expect the old stock to have shrunk considerably," says the Dutch grower.
"We usual grow in the Netherlands and Germany, but this year we haven't done so in Spain. We made that choice in November because we had sufficient stock in storage. A good choice in hindsight, it had not been easy to travel to Spain for cultivation during this Corona crisis. Fortunately, that was not necessary, we can probably just make it with our current stock, although there is a shortage lurking."
Meanwhile we are busy with planting work. “These are interesting times, but the work in the primary sector continues as usual. Virus or no virus, plowing, sowing and harvesting must continue. Today's plants are the harvest for tomorrow and nothing is more crucial than food. Hopefully, this crisis will contribute to raising awareness of this, so that returns will better match the risks and costs we face,” says Berden.
For more information:
Berden-Agro 
Luc Berden
Heymansstraat 81
5927 NP Venlo
The Netherlands
info@berdenagro.com
www.berdenagro.com