"Soft fruit demand is still rising. That stabilized late last year when high energy prices made consumers slightly less inclined to buy the somewhat pricier soft fruit. But, demand recovered early this year, and the soft fruit category is growing again," begins Johan de Witte, Managing Director of BerryWorld. This Dutch company cultivates and markets strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries.
He sees more room for growth. "Sales to our customers increase annually." But, though the strawberry category is still growing, this mature market's growth percentage is somewhat less than for raspberries and blueberries. Blueberries offer opportunities, too. "There are possibilities in places like Spain, France, and in Eastern Europe where consumption is much lower than in Northern Europe. The United Kingdom is also still growing fast. That country still offers plenty of growth opportunities," says Johan. The director sees that health often plays a role in choosing soft fruit. "Especially the new generation is quite concerned with this; they're very aware consumers. That makes me optimistic about the future."
BerryWorld still sees an increasing demand for soft fruit.
Good volumes
After a cold spring, which affected strawberries - these started later, notes Johan - the Dutch soft fruit sector began in earnest in early June. "Prices have been good," he says. The sunny weather is providing high production, so prices are noticeably leveling off slightly. "Blueberry prices are good, too. There's less supply for a short time now. Spain stopped somewhat earlier than expected, and we're waiting for supplies from new areas like Serbia, Italy, and Portugal."
Dutch raspberries come from greenhouse and tunnel crops, and Johan indicates that good volumes are being harvested. "Availability is just right; it's nicely balanced with demand," he notes. Although greenhouse blackberry production peaks in mid-June, too, Johan says their prices are slightly disappointing, adding that it is a small item, with less consumer attention, both at retail and BerryWorld. "People are less likely to buy these than blueberries or raspberries," Johan explains.
Local product preferred
He sees that Dutch retailers increasingly prefer carrying local products. "That requires greenhouse cultivation." Energy issues and high prices undoubtedly affect this. "Gas prices stabilized somewhat at an admittedly higher but more acceptable level. Good prices have helped make that cultivation possible, keeping it profitable. But power is a challenge and is becoming a major factor in certainly growers' daily operations," continues Johan. BerryWorld is thus focusing more on sustainably by using, say, solar panels. "Sustainability helps manage energy risks."
Still, Johan concedes that Dutch supermarkets cannot offer only locally cultivated soft fruit. "Some strawberries are grown under lights in the winter. But the energy prices make those more expensive to produce in the Netherlands," he points out. Southern Europe, therefore, will remain in the picture as far as BerryWorld is concerned. He does see in the area that water availability is becoming more acute. "That region will face the biggest challenges in the coming years," thinks Johan, and that might lead to a partial scaling down of cultivation.
Sustainable packaging
Sustainability is also a factor in soft fruit packaging, admits Operational Manager Ad Nouws. That is becoming increasingly important for retailers, who are, thus, also open to solutions and ideas. BerryWorld is developing these solutions and ideas in consultation with packaging machine supplier Sismatec, which supplies products like Proseal tray sealers for packaging fruit and vegetables.
Though BerryWorld uses pulp as a packaging raw material and packs some of its blueberries in cardboard, most of its soft fruit goes into transparent plastic punnets. Ad points out that paper is not always the solution and that the fragile soft fruit needs plastic's protection. Here, recycling is the biggest challenge. "People want to be able to see the berries, so fully transparent packaging is important," he says, adding that to reuse plastic in the chain as punnets, the raw material must be entirely transparent, which is hard to achieve.
"It's very tricky to extract only the 100% transparent plastic from all the collected plastic. We would make great strides if we could find an alternative." Until then, the primary focus is on using as little plastic as possible. "If you consider where we were, we've already reduced plenty," says Ad. Yet small steps are still possible. For example, BerryWorld recently started using resealable film instead of lids and is looking at combined plastic/paper packaging solutions.
For BerryWorld, the Sismatec packaging machines are an important element to create the most efficient packaging process.
Durable machines
Regardless of the packaging used, for Ad, an efficient packaging process is essential, and here, the machines are a vital aspect. "Sealing packaging properly with the minimum amount of plastic we still use is challenging," he admits. Cost control also plays a role. "It's all about efficiency. Packaging must be done as quickly as possible to control costs, and for that, we need sturdy machines that are always running. Sismatec gives us solid, reliable machines," Ad concludes.
For more information:
BerryWorld
[email protected]
www.berryworld.com
Sismatec
Tel.: +31 (0)546 874113
[email protected]
www.sismatec.nl
