At Handelsonderneming C.J. den Boer from 's-Gravendeel, the new crop of purple Morado garlic from Spain has been available again since last week. "We are again receiving a chunky, coarse size (55+), these were hard to come by in the last few months of the previous season so we had to settle for a size smaller, but now we hope to be able to offer them again throughout the year," says Kees.
Den Boer has focused on selling the cleaned purple garlic since 2016. For this, he devised a semi-mechanised solution to peel the outer white skins of the garlic so that consumers can clearly see that it is genuine purple Morado garlic. "With this purple garlic, we can distinguish ourselves well from the big bulk Chinese garlic. It really is a different item, but it also comes with a different price tag. Although the Spanish garlic acreage is decreasing, our supplier says it has a good crop at its disposal."
"We have seen the demand for Morado garlic increase in recent years. At first, this product was mainly taken up by the ethnic trade, but in recent years, native Dutch consumers also know their way around it. The health trend but also the revaluation of home cooking since the corona pandemic have certainly contributed to this."
Kees supplies the shredded garlic mainly to market traders with potatoes at the market. They often supply onions, garlic, ginger and shallots with it. So we can provide them with a complete assortment. In autumn, for instance, we will also start supplying dried pulses again. These are products that this segment of customers likes to sell with it. Most of the garlic we sell loose per 5, 10 or 20 kilos."
What is new, is that Den Boer has developed a cardboard box for selling three garlic bulbs. "The box is naturally recyclable and also offers more opportunity for communication than just a tube with a wine glass label. We did a pilot last year with the local supermarket here in 's-Gravendeel and that went very well. This year, we want to roll it out more widely towards supermarkets and fresh produce specialty shops."
For more information:
Kees den Boer
Handelsonderneming C.J. den Boer
Mijlweg 98
3295 KH 's-Gravendeel
[email protected]