Sales of Spanish vegetables began slightly later at ZON this year. "We only started auctioning in week 43, but due to DANA, the supply was slow to arrive in November. We have a daily supply available for sale, but volumes were not yet very large in November," notes Clock Sales Manager Els van Herpen.
The impact of storm DANA was limited among ZON's suppliers. "In the first weeks, we received lower volumes of aubergines, but overall, the damage to our suppliers was not too severe. For instance, we haven't missed a single shipment of peppers," Els says. "Moreover, we heard there was good availability of Spanish tomatoes and cucumbers on the market in recent weeks due to the warm weather. This was reflected in the pricing during our sales, which was clearly under pressure. At such times, we don't scale up too aggressively either."
"We only started supplying vine tomatoes a fortnight ago. Spanish tomato growers planted later again this year due to virus risks. Nevertheless, the warm weather has already brought a substantial number of vine tomatoes to the market. However, we expect this could lead to a production gap for tomatoes, as well as cucumbers, in late January to early February."
In addition to Spanish fruiting vegetables, ZON also receives daily supplies of Spanish outdoor vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, and iceberg lettuce. "We started slightly earlier with cauliflower from Spain this year, complementing the still limited supply of Dutch products. For iceberg lettuce, the Netherlands has been off the market for a while, but here too, we saw a large influx of products in recent weeks due to Spain's hot weather, which made sales challenging."
For now, ZON has no plans to expand its Spanish range. "We see that our digital platform works best as a sales tool for the staple products, and that range is also sold through the platform," says Els. "Once again this year, we are combining this with supplies of fruiting vegetables from other countries, such as Turkish vine tomatoes and Moroccan round tomatoes and beef tomatoes. There might be some expansion in the Moroccan range in the coming weeks."
For more information:
ZON
Venrayseweg 102
5928 RH Venlo
Tel: +31 (0)77 3239758
[email protected]
www.royalzon.com