Christmas is always a good time for exotic mushroom sales, and this year is no exception. "It is buzzing here," beams Harold Schuurmans from Westland Mushrooms.
"During this time of the year we also have help in promoting mushrooms. In almost all the culinary magazines mushroom recipes are present, and supermarkets offer more and more exotic mushrooms, along with the well-known white mushrooms."
For Westland Mushrooms, sales at home and abroad are evenly distributed, in which sales to Dutch exporters are also considered domestic sales.
Exotics mushrooms are not only booming in Dutch stores, but also in Germany, England, Belgium and especially France.
"The advantage of this is that people are becoming more aware of exotic mushrooms. A complete mushroom dish is quite common, especially around this time of the year."
Westland Mushrooms is trying to stimulate consumption with product information and recipes from suppliers. "The current mushroom front-runners are the Beech Mushroom (Shimeji) and the King oyster mushroom (Eryngii) from Asia. These mushrooms also last a long time, which you can present to the customer quite nicely. The market share of the Shii-take, portabella and oyster mushrooms are more stable," says Harold.
Westland Mushrooms currently participates in European cultivation due to the consumer preference for local-for-local. "This is taking shape very slowly. It may be more expensive, but there is a market for it. Although, I think that there will always be a market for Asian products in Europe, because the costs in Europe are much higher."
A highlight of this year is the Italian truffles. "The quality is good and people are learning more and more about all the things you can do with them," Harold says.
For more information:
Westland Mushrooms
Harold Schuurmans
T: 0174 24 03 34
M: 06 18 80 54 31
www.westlandmushrooms.com