We all know the Netherlands has a lot of greenhouses, and it’s hardly a secret that a lot of vegetables are grown in them. But where do these greenhouse vegetables end up? They’re not all eaten by the Dutch, after all. A lot of greenhouse vegetables are shipped abroad. How many? Just over 80 per cent. But where exactly do these Dutch greenhouse vegetables end up?
It quickly becomes clear the answer is Germany, without a doubt, when looking at export figures of recent years. Of all tomatoes exported in 2017, 46.1 per cent travelled to Germany. Dutch bell peppers, cucumbers and aubergines are also popular with our neighbours to the East. Of the export totals of these greenhouse vegetables, 31.7, 63.3 and 43.9 per cent, respectively, was shipped to Germany in 2017.
Brexit
After Germany, most of the Dutch greenhouse vegetables are sent to the UK. Export figures for the UK, however, are considerably lower than for Germany. Yet for all four vegetables, excepting courgettes due to a lack of data, The UK is still the number two importer of greenhouse vegetables from the Netherlands. In 2017, 15.3 per cent of all tomatoes grown in Dutch greenhouses, 22.9 per cent of bell peppers, 16.6 per cent of cucumbers and 22.2 per cent of aubergines, were shipped across the Channel.
The question now on everybody’s minds is whether the UK will retain this number two position when Brexit becomes official on 29 March 2019. According to Wilco van den Berg of GroentenFruit Huis, a lot of questions regarding the consequences of Brexit have not been resolved yet. “Right now, various scenarios are still possible, but it’s expected trade with the UK will become more difficult. How much more difficult is still uncertain. Right now, everyone’s working hard to ensure trade will continue to be as smooth as possible in future without high additional costs.”
In the meantime, the advice is to start looking for alternative sales markets, although that’s not as simple as it seems. Wilco: “It’s not as if there’s a ready-made list of good alternatives. Of course we’re always looking for new markets, even without Brexit, but the Netherlands isn’t the only country to do so. Spain will also be dealing with Brexit, and they’re looking for new growth markets just like we are.”
Yet it’s not as if the British will just stop eating Dutch tomatoes or cucumbers, Wilco emphasises. “Domestic production in the UK isn’t sufficient to meet their greenhouse vegetable demand.” The situation can therefore not be compared to the Russian boycott, which resulted in Dutch product no longer being allowed access to the Russian market as of August 2014. This was a blow, particularly for the export of Dutch tomatoes, because Russia was the fifth importer of Dutch tomatoes, with more than 38 million kilos of tomatoes in 2014, after Italy and Sweden, up till then. As of 2015, Poland has been one of the fifth largest importers of Dutch tomatoes.
Poland on the rise
As an alternative sales market, Poland stands out based on growth figures. Although domestic production is on the rise due to the increasing professionalisation of greenhouse horticulture in recent years, Poland also started importing more and more Dutch greenhouse vegetables in recent years. Between 2012 and 2017, the Dutch tomato export to Poland increased by 85.8 per cent to more than 35 million kilos per year, for example. The Polish import of Dutch bell peppers (56.9 per cent) and aubergines (32.7 per cent) also increased, while the cucumber import even tripled in the 2015-17 period. This means Poland is now in the top four of importers of Dutch cucumbers after Germany, the UK and France.
Portugal is another remarkable growth market, albeit in the margins of the total amount of exported kilograms. This country stands out with more than 63 times more imported kilos in 2017 (two million) compared to ‘only’ 32,000 kilos in 2012. The cucumber export to this Southern European country also rose explosively between 2015 and 2017; the number of imported kilograms increased more than 87 times from 39,880 kilos in 2015 to 348,480 kilos in 2017. The bell pepper import from the Netherlands, on the other hand, decreased by 6.5 per cent to 104,759 kilos between 2012 and 2017.
A striking decrease can be seen in Belgium, which imported 13.4 million kilos of tomatoes from the Netherlands in 2012, but only imported 5.7 million kilos in 2017. In cucumbers, the import decrease of Spain is noticeable. While 2.9 million kilos of cucumbers found their way from the Netherlands to Spain in 2012, this number had dropped to 179,175 kilograms of cucumbers in 2017. The increase of domestic production appears to be the cause of this for the most part.
Bell pepper leaves Europe most often
The majority of all vegetables remains within Europe. Of these vegetables, only the Dutch bell peppers bridge larger distances. Considerable numbers are sent across oceans. The US, for example, has been the third largest import of Dutch bell peppers after Germany and the UK since 2015. In 2017, more than 20 million kilograms, good for 6.6 per cent of the export total that year, was sent to the US. The increasing demand for organic bell peppers contributes to this.
Besides the US, Japan is also relatively high on the list of countries importing Dutch bell peppers, they’re number 13 (5.7 million kilos). In 2016, Canada also started importing bell peppers from the Netherlands again, after high levies in the 2009-15 period. However, after 1.8 million kilograms in 2016, that number decreased to 779, 000 kilos in 2017. Strict phytosanitary requirements in effect when transporting fresh products to far-off destinations continue to be a challenge.
Remarkably, China is missing in all four vegetable categories. The export of bell peppers to this Asian country has been possible since 2017, but with 16,000 kilograms, this export remained limited in this first year. The other vegetables can’t be exported to China (yet) because of the strict Chinese requirements. The admission of Dutch pears to the Chinese market in 2014 was preceded by seven years of negotiations.
More and more and increasingly longer
The biggest competitor of the Netherlands in the field of the export of vegetables is Spain. Spain is better than the Netherlands regarding the production of tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers and aubergines. The production area of these vegetables is mostly expanding outside of the tomato segment, while it’s been becoming clearer and clearer that the production in Spain lasts increasingly longer, so that Spanish product can still be on the market even late in June. This is definitely something to keep an eye on in the coming years.
vandenberg@groentenfruithuis.nl