The strawberry market has been fluctuating for weeks. “There’s no telling what will happen. Sometimes supply drops and then rises, and prices fluctuate along with that. This summer also has an unpredictable character. The holiday period is over by now, so the market is recovering again,” says Ron Poppelaars from Fresh Concept.
Large supply
He indicates that the supply of various varieties is large. “The Elsanta remains by far the most popular among our buyers, but in both the Netherlands and Belgium they’re now also harvesting many different carriers, including Murano (BE) and Arabella (NL). These are all varieties that have Elsanta’s characteristics, but don’t look entirely like Elsanta. The new varieties do well domestically, but the export countries take longer to get used to new varieties. Generally, the quality of the strawberries is good.”
Higher prices
He says prices were lower last week than they are now. “The difference is about 25 to 30 cent per 500 grammes on average. Consumption recovered again as of this week, partially because of promotions by various retailers.” It’s still unclear what the market will do in coming weeks. “It also depends on the weather. If it starts raining or hailing, production could be disappointing, but as it’s looking now, we’ll have a decent volume in coming weeks.”
Blackberries and raspberries
According to Ron, blackberries aren’t doing too well right now. “Even just one punnet too much, and prices drop to a minimum. One punnet too few, and prices sky-rocket. Raspberries are a different story, they’re very scarce at the moment. There’s not as much production because a different setting was used. Because of that, we are already completely in the Portuguese production. That is very remarkable for the time of year. It’s because of the production in the Netherlands and Belgium, but in regular years, Portuguese fruit comes into production alongside Dutch and Belgian product in September or October.” For more information:
freshconcept BV
Member of Group Achiel De Witte
Ron Poppelaars
Senior Trade Manager
+31 (0) 76 52 466 47
+31 (0) 76 52 466 40
+31 (0) 6 55 45 68 53
[email protected]
www.fresh-concept.nl
www.cebon.be
www.groupadw.be
