Cucumber prices have shot up sharply over the past week. By the end of week 49, auctions organized by the Association of Belgian Horticultural Cooperatives, VBT, reported an average price of more than €1.27 per cucumber. That is an unprecedented level, matching the record already set in week 48.
These current average prices stand out when compared with previous years. In 2020, for example, prices around this time never rose above €0.85 per fruit, and even that was considered unusually high. The traditional unlit production cycle has now finished, and the lit crop cycle has returned after several energy-crisis years, although the volumes are nowhere near those of the unlit season. On top of that, some growers have not yet started their lit cucumber production, which keeps supply tight.
Just as we're seeing in the Benelux, supermarket prices have also increased because Spanish auctions are experiencing the same trend (link in Dutch). Unfavorable weather has reduced cucumber supply by roughly ten to twenty percent.
Prices for pepino Frances, a long-fruited cucumber type, reached a peak on December 6 at €1.59 per kilo, then dropped sharply. Pepino Almería, another long-fruited type, also climbed quickly in recent weeks and peaked at €2.41 per kilo. After December 5, that price began to fall as well. Even by Spanish standards, these recent prices are exceptionally high.
© VBT/LV Vlaanderen Landbouwcijfers
By the end of week 49, the average price for truss tomatoes reached €1.07 per kilo, slipping below the five-year average. Loose tomatoes, however, held their ground slightly better, with an average price of just over €1.13 per kilo, placing them a bit above the five-year average.
© VBT/LV Vlaanderen Landbouwcijfers
The average price for head lettuce climbed above the five-year average last week, marking the first time this has happened since early May. In week 49, the average price per head came to €0.60.
© VBT/LV Vlaanderen Landbouwcijfers
By the end of week 49, the average price for strawberries reached €6.76 per kilo. With that, the market has climbed back to the five-year average, after spending the previous week below it.
© VBT/LV Vlaanderen Landbouwcijfers
View all the average prices from the auctions of the Association of Belgian Horticultural Cooperatives (VBT) on the Ministry's agriculture figures page at the link here.
