For years Van de Watering from Breda has been importing alternative lettuce varieties from their own production company La Cabanne de Soleil from the French Raphele les Arphes. At the moment the season is coming to a close. "I expect to continue for another week or two, but that depends on the weather. If it stays cold, we might go on for a few more weeks, as we have enough produce available," says John Kuper.
The importer characterizes the lettuce season as a calm, one sided market. The current price level is at around 6.50 / 7 Euro. "There weren't large volumes this season. The cultivation has gone without many problems. No less than 95% of our production goes to Germany. We can see that the competition on the Dutch market is increasing due to the larger supply of Dutch lettuce all year round, supplemented by Spanish and Italian lettuce.
La Cabanne de Soleil grows both red and green oak leaf lettuce, and both lollo rossa and lollo biondo. According to John, the ratio of the sales to Germany of green and red lettuce is 70/30% respectively. "Our German customers place an order around two or three times a week, and that lettuce goes straight from the garden to Germany. In Russia we only sell some Bavaria lettuce, but that tends to go in pallets."