During the winter season, pointed cabbage is a regular product for Ursem-Zuurbier, an open ground vegetable grower from the Dutch municipality of Heerhugowaard. According to Niels Zuurbier, there is not too much demand at the moment, "but there's some pressure ahead of Christmas mainly due to the shortage of personnel. Our Polish and Romanian employees are going home for the holidays. This leaves only a few of us to do the same work."
Niels Zuurbier (second from the right) with his colleagues
"Pointed cabbage sales have been quite good so far. In Belgium, some losses were recorded due to severe weather conditions, and that has resulted in some extra market demand," says the grower. "At the same time, more competition is coming to the pointed cabbage market. For example, the Germans are growing more and more and better varieties are coming in, so more pointed cabbage is being grown for storage."
"In any case, the total acreage devoted to vegetable production is getting smaller every year. There are quite a few growers quitting. So on the marketing side, people are getting anxious earlier and prefer to sign agreements. Currently, the price of pointed cabbage stands at between 60 and 70 cents. Those are reasonable prices, and we also need them at that level to be able to cover long term storage costs," said Niels.
Whereas with a product like iceberg lettuce, the cultivation company also supplies many fresh cut processing plants, pointed cabbage sales are mainly focused on supermarkets. "If you want cabbage in a salad, you might as well just use white cabbage, so pointed cabbage doesn't offer much value to fresh cut processing plants."
For more information:
Niels Zuurbier
Ursem – Zuurbier C.V.
Donkereweg 6a
1704 DV Heerhugowaard. Netherlands
+31 6 5474 1523
[email protected]