“Specialist shops are often unfamiliar with sweetcorn”

As an exhibitor at the VEG event, Giel Hermans noticed to his utter amazement that sweetcorn is still an unknown product for many specialist greengrocer’s shops. “When they even know the corn at all, it’s packaged corn. But sweetcorn with leaves makes a great barbecue vegetable, and a wonderful story could be told about it. Leave them soaking in a bucket of water for two hours, and the corn will be steamed until ready to eat on the grill. Specialists in particular could tell this story, supermarkets often don’t have the space for it.”

Besides, imported corn could have caterpillars at the top of the leaves, so that retailers prefer not to work with imported leafy corn. “But during the Dutch season, from mid-July to mid-September, the caterpillars don’t occur, and plenty of actions with loose corn are planned,” Giel says. “The high temperatures of recent weeks were good for the sales of sweetcorn. Right now, the bad weather in Spain and the good weather in Germany are causing a bit of a supply clash. The Dutch growing season went very well, and the harvest will start ten days earlier.”

Hermans Suikermais is now focusing on selling to Dutch supermarkets on a large scale. “Many countries are self-providing, although our sweetcorn is sent to all corners of the world by exporters. In the Netherlands, competition of fresh sweetcorn is limited. Some fortune-hunters appear occasionally, but they often soon realise it’s difficult to sell corn without customers,” Giel continues.