The supply of vegetables remains limited in Europe due to the impact that low temperatures have had in Spain, the main supplier in the autumn and winter months. Although daytime temperatures have risen, the cloudy weather does not suggest that the situation will change until late spring or even until the end of the export season.
"This has been a very difficult campaign from the start, since the demand was not good until mid-January, when temperatures began to drop," says Ginés Navarro, of the sales department of the Murcian company Agridemur, which is specialized in the production of leafy vegetables and salad mixes.
"Usually, the prices of fresh cut vegetable bags remain stable throughout the campaign, so when the prices of fresh uncut vegetables began to rise so much, part of the consumption of uncut vegetables switched over to cut vegetables, causing rising tension in the market," says Navarro.
At different times during the season there have been significant shortages of all kinds of leafy and brassica vegetables in Murcia, southern Alicante and northern Almeria. Temperatures have risen in recent days, but in addition to some rainfall, cloudy days are still expected in the coming days, with temperatures that won't go above 14 degrees Celsius, which, according to Ginés Navarro, will result in leafy crops not growing much.
"There is no surplus of any vegetable. Just before we were in this situation, we were two weeks ahead with all our crops due to accelerated plant growth from warmer than usual weather. At some point, this gap will have to be reflected in the market, although we don't yet know when. This will contribute to the supply being limited until well into the spring or even the end of the season."
"The prices of fresh cut products remain stable, but some of our customers, at certain times, have asked us to find broccoli, cauliflower or romaine lettuce productions at any price; something that is impossible, since no one has any surpluses," says the sales manager of Agridemur.
"Normally, about 95% of the production is in the hands of marketing companies, whose surpluses are used to build customer loyalty or attract new customers, but this has been a non-existent practice this year, at least with leafy vegetables. About 10 years ago, there was a little more production of these vegetables for the free market, which was sold to the highest bidder, but that has been lost. Last year, such production outside of programs was already very limited," he says.
Rising production costs have affected everyone, from small producers to large companies. "In the case of the convenience vegetable bag business, the impact has been even greater," says Ginés Navarro. "We have to estimate the costs with utmost accuracy to prevent being left out of supply programs and, for the time being, we have not been able to pass the higher production costs on to the prices."
For more information:
Ginés Navarro
Agridemur
T: +34 968 587587
g.navarro@agridemur.com
www.agridemur.com