"EU: "Strawberry market in serious dip for more than a week"

A sad atmosphere dominates the strawberry market. "For a week now the selling price is really below cost for the growers," Petra Wautraets of the Limburgse Tuinbouw Veiling explains. "There is some talk of a serious dip. We expected that better weather would cause bigger sales, but this was the reason for an oversupply

in production. European supply is very large at the moment."

"Prices for EVT's (protected cultivation) are about 80 cents and for the bigger carrying varieties an average of 50 cents per 500 gr. is being paid," the commercial manager mentions. "This is far too little, especially for EVT's, which is a rather expensive form of cultivation. In the period before the dip we experienced a few good weeks, when prices were between 1.50 and 2.00 Euro. At that stage there was a shortage, but that is now completely over."

According to Petra the LTV export is reasonable. "We notice that countries such as Norway and Sweden still have own production for a part. Luckily the quality is better now than in the beginning. The open ground cultivation was disappointing for a while, but that is now in the past. At the moment we have strong, longer carrying

varieties, such as Portola and Evy on the market."

Petra finds it difficult to predict what will happen in the strawberry market during the coming period. "We must remain positive and hope prices will increase quickly."

For more information:
Limburgse Tuinbouw Veiling
Petra Wautraets
1035, Industrieweg
3540 Herk-De-Stad, Belgium
Tel.: +(32) 13 55 01 10
Fax: +(32) 13 55 46 45
www.ltv.be