Sufficient volumes of white and pointed cabbage - as well as other cabbage varieties - can be offered by ARUS August Reimers & Sohn Ltd, Managing Director Jörn Reimers tells us. Due to the drought, however, he expects more smaller sized produce.
"We are sourcing this produce from northern Germany. Instead of 5-6 kg, however, the heads only come to 2-3 kg, so there will be volume shortages. We expect the cabbages to be available until the next season. Prices this year are already higher than last year, which is also due to the volumes involved. However, customers seem to refuse to buy them, or are very reluctant to do so. This is not least due to the communication on the part of politicians. Consumers are unsettled right now," says Reimers.
Jörn Reimers at the ARUS stand at the Hamburg wholesale market.
Major outages in the Netherlands
Further problems caused by energy and production costs will only become apparent this winter, he suspects. "Generally, Dutch producers are operational year-round. However, they are letting their crops expire and are not currently replanting them, because their contracts have also expired and they have to buy energy from the spot market. Apart from that, growers do not even know if they will be able to recoup the money they have invested in heating and lighting. "Volumes out of the Netherlands will most certainly be down this winter," Reimers fears.
"At least the dryness has made it easier to store the cabbage. The purchase price has doubled compared to last year. In 2021, however, the price was quite low as well, due to excess volumes, while prices are more or less back in the normal range. Almost nothing is being sold at the start of the week. Instead, customers, especially catering suppliers, tend to focus on the end of the week."
Double the price for pallets
"Spain would then become the main supplying country. If, again, bad weather will occur there, we will be faced with abysmally high prices here. At the beginning of the year, even before the war in Ukraine, we already had to heat often, which led to correspondingly higher prices. Transportation costs are also enormous, due to high fuel prices. Freight rates have also doubled this year," Reimers said.
These costs, together with the increased minimum wage, are in turn reflected in the prices of goods and, according to Reimers, this will have an even greater impact starting next year. "If the goods become scarce and expensive, then this all will matter less, so to speak. The main thing then is to be able to offer the goods. In such situations, producers will then prefer to supply wholesale markets instead of the retail chains. After all, because they will get more from us than from food retailers."
Smaller sized goods everywhere
Not only for vegetables, but for fruits such as apples as well, there was a huge harvest this year, but it consisted largely of smaller sized fruits that were difficult to market, Reimers said. "It's similar with citrus, because this summer's heat will be very noticeable in products such as oranges," he said.
Reimers is relieved, in turn, that Germany has not yet been hit by frost. "The iceberg lettuces will be out next week. If it doesn't freeze, we could have relatively good sales of lettuces and vegetables, similar to previous years. If it does freeze again, then everything will be over in an instance," Reimers predicts.
For more information:
Jörn Reimers
ARUS August Reimers & Sohn GmbH
Auf der Brandshofer Schleuse 4
Gang K Stand 414/415
20097 Hamburg
Tel.: (+49 40) 3 25 85 00
Fax: (+49 40) 32 58 50 20
[email protected]
https://www.arusgmbh.de