At the moment, Paul Leenheer can pretty much sell everything that's green in his greenhouse. At his company, consisting of 3 hectares in Zwijndrecht, he grows several pak choi and various lettuces such as lollo bionda, lollo rossa and iceberg lettuce. “There’s demand for everything, everything that you have, you can sell.” But that is exactly the problem. Even Paul does not have much produce. “Most of the produce is already sold. Prices are fixed and we’re in a period when it’s the worst time to grow. There are no measures we can take to improve growing.”
“Everything comes together”
Paul expects for the shortages to continue. “This morning I heard that things will improve next week, but even if that was the case, the problems can not be solved quickly – greens still have to grow. And the end of the Spanish season is approaching. If the temperature gets too high, it’s over.” It’s quite surprising for the grower that in particular the big retail corporations don’t seem to have any understanding for the situation. “I don’t think that this has happened before. Six weeks ago, things went wrong in Spain, and now this happens. With snow in Italy and cold weather in France and Greece, the whole south of Europe has it rough. It all happened at the same time. But at the end of the day, this is nature and we can’t control it.”
The growth of lettuce in Dutch greenhouses has seen a steady decrease in the last decades and due to the fusarium problems, things have gotten worse. The mold doesn’t appear in winter, but a number of growers have opted to grow different vegetables or flowers in the greenhouse. With the present problems in southern Europe and the low production in the Netherlands, it seems that the hydroponics lettuce grower will be doing very well. But that is not an obvious choice for Paul. “Right now you can achieve good sales, but production costs for hydroponic cultivation will increase considerably. In the higher segment, for example for the Scandinavian countries, this will be acceptable, but the Dutch processing companies will still go for the cheaper products.”
Left: the cultivation in Spain, right: in The Netherlands
Endive from the greenhouse
Grower of endive, Nico Kooijman, sees the prices improve as well, but he's not celebrating yet. "Growth here is much slower, so we don’t have much supply. A few pallets per day maybe. This continues into Spring. If planting would occur now in Spain, they would have produce again in 5 to 6 weeks.” Nico grows regular and curly endive on 3 hectares in Ridderkerk. Also, this kind of crop has almost disappeared in the Netherlands. "The processing firms now operate completely on Spanish products. Our greenhouse Endive is for the fresh market. We have traditionally always been doing that. We can sell it via The Greenery." Due to the Spanish endive being scarce, everyone is tight and prices go up in the free market. "But you obviously do not know that in advance. If you have planted in September, October, you cannot make changes anything anymore, still it is a lucky break."
Closing gaps
In the shops, heads of iceberg lettuce are now sold for two euros a piece. Henk van Doorne from 's-Gravenzande has about 80,000 heads of lettuce in his greenhouse. "Last year I got 15 to 18 cents per head, now the price per head is 55 to 60 cents. I can now close the financial gap from last year with these prices, because for 15 cents you can’t grow any crop," he tells WOS. Yet there are still some empty spots in his greenhouse. Henk says that it makes no sense now to plant his whole greenhouse full of lettuce seedlings. "A small plant takes eight weeks before it has fully grown. By then, the market will have changed again and I might no longer profit from the present prices.”