Netherlands and Belgium
With the end of the summer season, the harvest of tomatoes grown in greenhouses and fields in the Netherlands and Belgium came to an end. Production still continues in greenhouses where agricultural lighting is used, and imported tomatoes have started to reach these countries.
The shock wave caused by the pandemic period in the spring has caused some traders to overstock. After this panic atmosphere quickly passed, traders struggled to sell these products at good prices.
Although the prices rose slightly at the end of August and the beginning of September, these prices did not satisfy the producers and traders.
As of October, prices came to better levels.
The import season in the Netherlands and Belgium has had a slow start in recent weeks. The decrease in tomato planting in Spain, on the other hand, made Morocco and Turkey an even more important player in imports of products such as cherry tomatoes.
Due to cheap imports, there was pressure on prices.
Although there has been a decrease in imports from the Netherlands and Belgium recently; Supply is increasing with imports from Turkey, Morocco and Spain. These products, which are cheaper than imported tomatoes from Central Europe, have lowered prices.
Production still continues in greenhouses. Germany has been making significant investments in tomato cultivation, and an increase has been observed in the number of greenhouse complexes with LED lighting in recent years.
Prices are falling due to the competition caused by imported tomatoes from Morocco.
In Almeria, which is an important region of Spain in tomato cultivation; In recent years, the areas allocated for tomato plantings have decreased. High production costs, increased pests and low profit margins in tomatoes have led producers in Almeria to turn to products with lower production costs such as peppers and zucchini. With these developments, a 20% decrease in tomato production is expected.
Until the 44th week, tomato prices were higher than other vegetables. After the 45th week, prices started to decrease gradually. With the import to be made from Morocco in a few weeks, the increase in competition will cause a decrease in prices.
Related Products
The price is currently slightly higher than last year.
Approximately 550,000 tons of tomatoes are exported from Turkey every year. An increase of 20-30% is expected in tomato production in Turkey this year. Although prices are 5-10% higher than last year, export prices are about 10% lower than last year due to the fluctuation in foreign exchange.
We can divide the Turkish tomato export market into two. On one side of the market, countries that remain high in terms of price and quality, such as Germany, Poland, the Baltic States, Belarus, Russia, England; on the other hand, countries such as Romania, Iraq, the Czech Republic and Ukraine, which are on the lower price and quality scale.
Due to low yield, demand exceeds supply.
Half of the tomatoes in Italy come from Sicily. Due to the coronavirus and low yields, demand in Italy has outstripped supply. This low yield is due to the effects of weather conditions and a number of diseases such as Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus (ToBRFV) . It is estimated that these factors, which caused the decrease in tomato supply, caused a production decrease of more than 40-50% in some regions.
Tomato prices are falling.
Although October was sufficient in terms of domestic production and sales, prices were reasonably good. For this reason, competition with imported products was less in October. In addition to tomatoes produced in France, it is possible to find tomatoes produced in the Netherlands and Poland in the market. Tomato consumption has decreased due to the end of the summer season, people's tendency to eat less tomatoes in the winter, and the restaurants in France being closed.