Increased competition from imported products from countries including Morocco, Spain, and Turkey is the legacy of the energy crisis for tomato growers in the Netherlands. VILT took a supermarket tour and subsequently asked Flemish cooperatives for an explanation. Due to the lack of illuminated crops in recent years, supermarkets have shopped more abroad, and reversing this trend seems challenging, even now when there is indeed more lit-cultivation produce supply available.
Tomato prices in the European Union were lower this winter, as we saw yesterday. Here too, increased illuminated cultivation alongside import supply seems to be a cause.