The Dutch pear season is on its last legs. "It's a season to forget quickly. That's true for many pear-focused links in the top fruit chain," says Mark Vernooij of Urfruit. "At harvest time, expectations were high. The very high prices at the end of last season partly drove that. But few people got off-the-tree prices. Not when you subtract the extra costs incurred. These include those for cooling, losses, etc."
"Just about the whole year's sales season was tough. That was partially because of rock-bottom auction prices. Some of the data these sales were based on turned out not to be entirely correct. Growers, marketing organizations, and retailers use this information. That resulted in additional market pressure. Currently, sales parties are packing up the last storage cells. So, in principle, all our 2020-2021 pears have now been sold. That's apart from a single cell which greatly overshot its sales moment."
"We still have to get crop estimates. But the coming season seems to be more reasonable. A somewhat more modest European harvest is expected. That should, hopefully, result in a little less price pressure early in the season. Many sectors take the cost-plus model for granted. Our sector should return to such a model. After all, we have a great product. It can't be cultivated anywhere else as well as in the Netherlands and Belgium. We should be quite proud of that," Mark concludes.
For more information:
Mark Vernooij
Urfruit
45 Marketing
6921 RE, Duiven, NL
T. +31 (0) 575 472 473
Email: m.vernooij@urfruit.nl
Website: www.urfruit.nl