At Euro Gijbels' production site in Catalonia, the melon season has started again since last week. "During our inspection two weeks ago, we saw that the melons were growing super well and were now ready for consumption. Now, in Belgium, the weather might be better for sales, but in other countries we do see that there is already a lot of demand for the Cantaloupe and Galia melons," John Gijbels and Stef Minten of Euro Gijbels told us.
Last year was a transitional year for the company. This included investing in a new warehouse and moving fruit triage inside. "In fact, we noticed that we were at our limit in the sun and heat of the field. So last year was the first year the palloxes came off the field, after which we sorted and packed them in our warehouse," John explains. "We had to get the hang of that for a while, but this year we were able to push through and planted 10 times more volume than last year. In total, we are now working with about 300 tons and those are still nice volumes. So qualitatively, we are also completely satisfied. Especially the first time you go through the field, it's all nice quality. The next harvests you have to watch a bit more intensively which melons make it and which don't, but with the investment, that should be totally fine." At the company, the season will run until around early August.
And so Euro Gijbels is also looking beyond the Belgian market with the larger volumes this season. "At the end of last week we started with the Galia and since this week we have also delivered the first Cantaloupe to our Spanish customers and that is very positive. They want more and more. We deliver 10 to 20 pallets a week, but they want 40, which is great and as of today we also got them in our warehouse in Belgium," Stef explained. "Last year, we focused our sales mainly on Belgium, but we would like to look wider. Especially in these times, you never know whether it will be a cold, wet or hot summer, but melons are a very weather-related product."
"If the sun shines, demand is good, but if it is 10 degrees, nobody wants to eat melons. As a result, we would like to have better sales. We saw the same with oranges last year. In north-west Europe, we couldn't get rid of them, but in Spain we had far too few. We sold a lot on the local Spanish market and also got better prices for them than if we had to export. A similar situation now exists in the Cantaloupe and Galia. In Belgium the weather has still been bad, but in other parts of Europe the sun is shining. As soon as the sun will shine in Belgium, demand will go up there too. In any case, we won't have any problems getting rid of our volumes."
Melons are therefore becoming an increasingly important crop for the company. "We actually started it to give our Spanish growers a good crop in summer," John continues. "We have long specialised in winter with our Spanish vegetables (cauliflower, celery and parsley) and citrus, but for the growers' profitability, it's nice to have something good to go with that in summer as well. Then they can keep their staff throughout the year. They want to stay, but there has to be work. With the professionalisation of our melon growing, we can now provide that and can already look ahead. After all, we can always expand, but let's establish a good crop first before you get ahead of yourself. From there, we could make great strides in the future," Stef concludes.
For more information:
John Gijbels / Stef Minten
Euro Gijbels
Cami de les Arenes s/n
43300 Mont-roig del Camp
Tarragona - Spain
[email protected]
www.eurogijbels.be