After the rain and hail storms of this summer, Adri den Dekker, purchasing and agrarian manager with HAK, spoke about the largest vegetable shortage in 40 years. The high temperatures of recent weeks are causing a new challenge. “We have done everything to absorb those shortages, and planted certain products for a second time. We will have partial returns from that, but it is still very questionable for the other part. Due to the heat, returns and quality of, for example, French beans have decreased significantly. It is very questionable whether we will have enough beans. We also have to wait and see what the additionally planted carrots will do.”
Sourcing from abroad in order to complement shortages is not part of HAK’s strategy. “We try to cultivate within a radius of 125 kilometres, because we start from Dutch ingredients. Replanting also took place in the Netherlands as much as possible. It is a very peculiar season, and the weather circumstances of the past few weeks have not helped at all. All in all, we have quite a few uncertainties about whether we will last until the 2017 season. We are not certain whether we will be able to guarantee it for all of our products, for we are going to honour our specifics, and will not make concessions to our quality values. For example, we had to reject many French beans because they were not HAK-worthy,” Den Dekker continues.