Netherlands: Tunesia increasing potato imports

The family business Bart's Potato Company specializes in potatoes and all their applications. The company grows and supplies potatoes and potato products and provides an extensive assortment of onions, vegetables and fruit. In the spring months Bart's Potato Company imports potatoes from Morocco, Tunisia, Israel, Egypt and Cyprus. The company is located a few kilometres from the French border and have many growers there. "France is important to us and we sell about as many French as Belgian potatoes per season," says Jurgen Duthoo. When it comes to import potatoes according to the trader, in recent years there has been less from Egypt to Western Europe and Israel fills in these volumes. "An emerging nation in potato imports is Tunisia. This country has been improving quality in recent years."

That import potatoes will become more important in relation to the internal harvest is not the case according to Jurgen. "It is true however that in the Spring the demand for new potatoes is increasing and these are not available domestically." He said that not many growers here are happy. "If the price difference between the new crop and the old crop is small, the customer will choose the new crop. Then the old looses its market value. Growers find it outrageous that so little is currently paid for the old and the price of the new crop is higher. An example is the variety Nicola: The old cost 4 to 5 times less than newly imported. "

How will the potato imports look in the future? "The volumes vary each year and this has to do with the prices of the new harvest. Also, the price and quality of the old crop has a major influence. We hear from the retail that consumers are buying price focused more and more. So old crop will always be offered cheaper than new crop. This could also affect imports in the next years.