Against all odds, the corona crisis has had little negative impact on the current strawberry market. “We expected exports and sales to be hit by the crisis, but the opposite turns out to be true,” says Philip Van Overbeke of the strawberry company of the same name. “I think we can say that this year sales are 30% higher than last year. We really shouldn't be negative. ”
“The prices are also a lot better than last year. The auction price is currently around 5 Euro per kilo. The price has risen by almost 2 Euro since last week. Our domestic sales are also going well. We normally have 3 strawberry vending machines and a small farm shop, but we closed them because of the corona measures. That is why we decided this year to install a fourth machine and all machines are doing very well,” says Philip.
“The strawberries are of good quality, but we picked quite a few small sizes. Some colleagues also suffer from this. The small sizes are probably the result of the poor weather we had in late April. Despite the small size, the taste is very good this year,” says Van Overbeke. “We are hoping we won't have an overly hot summer. We do not want last year's heat waves. That is not very good for strawberry cultivation and many other crops. ”
“The production in the greenhouse has started to deteriorate at the moment, which reduces the supply somewhat. The strawberries in the plastic caps are beginning to colour and we expect to pick them at the end of this week. The outdoor rack crops have been in bloom for two weeks and we expect to be able to pick them in about three weeks,” Philip concludes.
For more information:
Philip Van Overbeke
Aarbeien Van Overbeke 
Bessemstraat 65
8790 Waregem (Belgium)
+32 (0) 56 61 43 88
[email protected]
www.strawberriesvanoverbeke.be