"Considering that for us the campaign begins on 1 September, it is still early to make an assessment, but regarding courgettes, the season is late, also registering a 25% drop in production. By contrast, and especially due to the good price reached in November, the product's profitability per kg has increased by 10%," explains Juan E. Cano Díaz, Commercial Director of AgrupaEjido.
In the course of the campaign there has been a case of swinging prices. From September to the first week of October, prices were slightly better than in the previous campaign. October's second half brought worse results, according to Juan Cano, but in early November prices notably improved. Courgettes now remain around €1.05 after having reached €1.50. "Aubergines still have a mediocre price, with an initial value under €0.57."
Agrupaejido's main activity is vegetable commercialisation, for which they have several auctions strategically distributed in southern and eastern Almeria. This way "we manage to come as close as possible to the production areas. We also have a vegetable packing plant to be able to meet our clients' demand, mainly in Europe," assures Juan Cano.
AgrupaEjido offers several courgette varieties. "The most traded are the Sinatra, Cronos, Prometeus and Victoria."
Regarding competition with Morocco, Cano explains that with certain products, such as tomatoes, "it is very fierce. In the case of beans, they have virtually controlled the market for years. At certain times, they also cause the courgette market to suffer from oversupply, and to a lesser extent they also compete with products such as spicy peppers and other crops not as popular in Almeria," he assures. "They are very competitive, especially because of their low labour costs."
AgrupaEjido exports its vegetables mainly to EU countries: The Netherlands, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Portugal and Poland, with the brands ALMERY, PANDAL, LEAL and PERFECT CHOICE.
Cucumber
Like with other crops, the autumn campaign arrived late, with smaller production volumes and slightly higher average prices, at least for the Almeria variety, because for others, like the French and the Short variety, "the campaign is bad in terms of prices, although they have recovered a little lately," says Juan Cano.
Almeria's cucumber has reached prices of up to €1 in recent days. "Now prices have dropped slightly, down to €0.80."
AgrupaEjido supplies cucumbers of the Borja, Valle, Burgos, Fortica and Benito varieties.
In general terms, since the E.Coli crisis, which was totally blown out of proportion, and some previous crises, integrated production has been implanted everywhere, especially for products such as peppers and tomatoes. "In the same way, AgrupaEjido was determined to have most of our producers certified by Global Gap. During last year's campaign, we doubled the number of hectares under this certification, reaching 1,300 hectares," he concludes.
For more information:
Juan Cano (Commercial Director)
AGRUPAEJIDO S.A.
Ctra. De Las Norias, 5 y 7- Pol. El Olivo,
La Mojonera, Almería. Spain
T +34 950339900
[email protected]
www.agrupaejido.com