Last week's beautiful weather ensured that there was a sharp increase in the supply of cucumbers on the market this week. "In the past two weeks, we already had decent volumes, but today there were still very many cucumbers available. There was a total of about 80,000 packages at the auction here, and that's just what's running over the clock, so prices took a serious hit anyway," explained Jonathan Vandesande of FMB, which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary.
"Cucumbers are traditionally the first product to become available from Belgium in spring," he continues. "This year is no different. Especially with the good weather, there was suddenly a large supply available. The growers can still consider themselves lucky that there is very little coming onto the market from Spain at the moment, because otherwise, we would be working at the rock-bottom prices we saw a few years ago, I think. Today, prices were around 25 euro cents each for the 350+ cucumbers. Some other grades sold for more, others for less. Most of the 350+ were available. That's pretty low, especially compared to last year, which was a great year for cucumbers. Then nobody had to hold back, but this year is significantly different."
On the other hand, Jonathan sees that demand can still reasonably keep up with the large supply. "Sales at current prices are running smoothly. The current weather does make for nice sales, but I do fear what will happen when the colder temperatures that have been predicted show up again. That may well cause a problem, as it is quite a lot of volume all of a sudden before the start of the season. Colder weather, on the other hand, could also reduce production again, so we will have to wait and see."
Jonathan Vandesande
Tomatoes off to a slow start
As for the other greenhouse vegetables, the trader sees that it's all yet to get going a bit. "Peppers and eggplants have already started, but it will take some time before serious volumes of them arrive. In sweet peppers, we mainly see some green coming in, but people are really waiting for them because of the rainy period in Spain. Moreover, tomatoes are also coming in slowly. There, the situation is exactly opposite to cucumbers."
"Two to three weeks ago, there was an oversupply. Especially with the productions coming from Morocco and Spain at the time, we saw very low prices for the time of year. Sometimes they were between 1.30 and 1.40 euros a kilo. Today, meanwhile, we're at another euro more, which is relatively expensive. There is simply little quality supply from the south right now, and in Belgium and the Netherlands, the productions have yet to take off. So we are working in a tight market with a lot of demand. That makes beef tomatoes, for example, very expensive at the moment. Still, I foresee that here, especially with the nice weather last week, production will increase quickly. All in all, we are still optimistic about next season."
For more information:
Jonathan Vandesande
Frans Michiels & Zn (FMB)
Kempenarestraat 50A - Bus 3
2860 Sint-Katelijne-Waver, Belgium
Tel: +32 15 560600
info@fmb.be
www.fmb.be