"Upward line in tomato market"

Last winter some money could be made with coarse tomatoes, but this year the middle segment is doing better. "Luckily the market is on an upward line. It's slowly going up," says Rene Welles.

As of the 1st of January Welles is trading his own product, coming from a 9 hectare greenhouse in the south of the Netherlands. "The market is finally on an upward trend at the moment. Of course this has nothing to do with me! The weather in southern Europe has changed. It's slightly more difficult there and it's slower."

Anneke van Horick, Cora and René Welles

Coarse
Yesterday Welles cut the last coarse tomatoes of this season. "It's a shame really, because we now have the prices we should have been making from the start. I've been able to sell the last ones off at a reasonable price, but 2014 has been a bad year for coarse tomatoes." One of the other gardens (2.5 ha) is full of middle range vine tomatoes. "The price has gone up faster and is now acceptable. But we hope it will go up even more, as this season has also started badly. We hardly got anything for them after the second week of December. The price was below a Euro. And even that was more than was being paid for coarse." These prices mean that the situation in the tomato market is the exact opposite to last year when more was paid for the coarse tomatoes than for the middle segment. "Maybe because not enough middle range was planted this year, or because Spain and Morocco have different areas."

Cucumbers
Welles will supply tomatoes until March. Then he will switch to cucumbers. Has he not considered having a garden of tomatoes all year round? After all, the cucumbers didn't do particularly well last year. "I have always had an autumn cultivation of tomatoes and it's going well. Cultivation under light tries to get the higher prices. Then I go back to cucumbers - I specialise in this." So Welles will be supplying cucumbers once again in March. "It isn't a daily or weekly trade - most of it is set quickly." Part of Welles production has also already been set. "Straight to retail. Those agreements are done." He has no regrets about taking the sales into his own hands. "As a businessman you have to have a challenge. Two years ago it was the new company. We now have that under control. Right now we don't have the price under control - so we're going to work on that."

For more information:
Welles BV
Sintelweg 1
Grubbenvorst
Mob: 0031 6-51087052
info@wellesbv.nl
www.wellesbv.nl