Netherlands: First Bouquet watermelons have arrived

The first Bouquet watermelons from the cooperative Anecoop arrived yesterday at 4Fruit Company. “A remarkably early start. They would normally next week, but they arrived a week early,” explains Lisan van Koppen. The Bouquet brand melons from Anecoop are exclusively distributed by 4Fruit Company.

Van Koppen was in Almería last week to see the harvest with her own eyes and she was pleasantly surprised with the watermelon cultivation. “The first watermelons sometimes have a thicker rind and slightly more reddish flesh, but we already saw an improvement in this last year, and this year, with the new varieties, we have carried this improvement on. As to colour and brix we started off well right away. We mostly have sizes 4, 5 and 6 available now.”

So far volumes are minimal. “It is now just a matter of distribution. We mostly sell the first ones to Dutch customers, with these numbers we cannot yet supply supermarkets,” says Van Koppen. In previous years the first watermelons were always seeded, but now they are already available seedless. “Considerably more seedless watermelons of the Bouquet brand are available in any case. Furthermore, after last year’s success with miniature watermelons, we have increased the production of these.”

“Last year the season started slower, and we had lower volumes due to bad weather. Spain has had excellent weather so far, and plenty of volumes will be available. Admittedly, we still have three weeks of melons arriving from overseas, but advance sales for those have been good so far, so they should not have to get in each other’s way. From mid to late May volumes from Spain will start to increase. Until week 24 or 25 we will receive melons from Almería and then we will switch to production from Murcia.”