As soon as supermarkets start placing signs with the message ‘this bell pepper mix is no longer in stock due to very bad quality,’ it becomes clear the Spanish import season is ending. “When you now put Spanish bell peppers next to Dutch product, some differences become apparent,” says Sales Manager Wouter Willems of Royal ZON. “Yet a lot of Spanish product is still on the market. As a result, prices for Dutch red product, for instance, aren’t great either, at 1.30 euro.”
Empty shelves
Last week, Royal ZON was still auctioning Spanish bell pepper, but this won’t last long. “We’re looking into when to stop with Spanish product and start auctioning Dutch bell peppers in consultation with our growers. We’ll make that switch this week. Our grower of orange bell pepper is now in production as well.”
One of these growers selling their product via Royal Zon is Antonie Leeuwen of Teegrow. He’s ready to start harvesting red bell peppers this week. “Last week, we harvested the first green bell peppers, and on Monday we’ll start harvesting red. This is a week later than normally because of the weather, for a good setting you need light.”
Photo: Teegrow’s greenhouse
Inspectors busy
“The quality of the Spanish bell peppers is decreasing rapidly,” confirms Frits van der Meulen of the Dutch Quality Control Bureau. “It wasn’t too bad a few weeks ago, but quality is really disappointing now. Batches that seem fair when arriving are unrecognisably bad after just a few days.”
The inspector stationed in Spain on behalf of Royal ZON is therefore very busy nowadays, Wouter knows. “He has to guide things to get everything here looking good. Sometimes you’ll just have to accept slightly poorer quality, because you need the trade. It’s mostly important product doesn’t lie around too much.”
Switch
Prices for Spanish bell peppers currently vary from about 40 cent for yellow to 80-90 cent for red and green.
Screenshots Agropizzara 21-3-2019 10.50, left to right: yellow, red, green
The question is now when retailers will switch. Frits expects it won’t be much longer. As soon as retail switches, it can go fast. Wouter: “Particularly when German retailers switch and start asking for Dutch product, you could very easily be short a pallet. Prices often shoot up when that happens.”
Antonie is ready, as are his colleague growers, undoubtedly. “Consumers can’t start buying Dutch product again soon enough,” he concludes, laughing. “Quality won’t be a problem, because it’s excellent.”
For more information:
Quality Control Bureau
www.kcb.nl
Frits van der Meulen
f.v.d.meulen@kcb.nl
Royal ZON
www.royalzon.com/nl
Wouter Willems
wouter.willems@royalzon.com
Teegrow
www.teegrow.nl
Antonie Teeuwen
info@teegrow.nl