Start of the import season
Most of the Dutch product from the 2014 harvest has now been sold.
Quite a number of Dutch organic products were sold out early in the year. Organic celeriac, red onions, red cabbage and potatoes were not avaiable on the open market in the first weeks of April. That’s earlier than usual. These products are usually available from the mechanical storages until at least the end of April and sometimes well into May.
For a number of products the import season is well under way.
The organic Dutch carrots sold out two weeks ago. Import from Israël has taken it’s place.
Import of organic red beetroot from Spain has also started.
The big exception seems to be the organic brown onions. There are still plenty of these left in Holland at the moment (good quality out of mechanical cold store). Import of organic browns from Egypt started early this year and several German and Dutch supermarkets have already switched to imported product. This means that prices for the Dutch product has fallen dramatically in the past few weeks.
In Holland growers are preparing for the new season. The photo shows an organic grower at work in the North-East Polder (near Emmeloord) preparing ridges for organic seed potatoes.
Making ridges for seed potatoes