By accelerating early in the marketing season – and thereby selling many tons of potatoes – this year has worked out well for Eriva's potato pool. The thirtieth and last polar year can be called special to say the least.
By accelerating early in the marketing season – and thereby selling many tons of potatoes – this year has worked out well for Eriva's potato pool. The thirtieth and last polar year can be called special to say the least.
Eriva's pool price for the 2019 harvest year is €14,15 per 100 kilos in week 13. This price is paid for French fries-suitable ware potatoes from clay in size 40mm upwards, with at least 60% being 50mm upwards. The amount is excl. VAT and excluding the pool fee of €0,03 per 100 kilos. Agria's for the export market and Melody's for small packaging are both rewarded with €1 extra. No price difference is used for the other varieties, because the market simply did not offer any opportunities for this.
Result above average
Considering the season and the pool prices known so far, this is a very decent result. Prior to the announcement of the pools compared we discuss the different sales methods and their results. If we compare the Eriva price with this, it is clear that the pool managers can be satisfied. They score €1,31 higher than the market average.
Pool manager Sjaak Ermers himself mainly speaks of dumb luck, although it was clearly the strategy. "Since the 2006 harvest, we have seen that the potato quotation in the autumn determines the price for the entire storage season. With this in mind, we counted on a price level of €15 to a maximum of €20. Because at that time the sales prices were in that range. we decided to accelerate and sell a lot of tons. In retrospect, that gamble paid off well. From March there was no longer a market. That is dumb luck, because no one could predict the impact of the corona crisis in advance. Looking back, we can conclude that the price € 3 is lower than would have been the case without the corona crisis, it is estimated."
Custody fee
Storing the potatoes for a long time was not profitable last season. Eriva pays a storage fee of a maximum of €0,39 on week 26, and has deliberately kept this low. "If you pay a higher compensation, the growers who delivered early would suffer, which is not defensible given the price trend," Ermers explains. "The processing figures about June positively surprised me. The processing level is now 9,5% below the old level. However, that is too little, because the market needs 100% processing to create opportunities in the market and therefore a positive balance."
The pool did not participate in the scheme for French fries potatoes, because growers had to register batches individually. With the 2019 harvest year in the books, Ermers concludes his thirtieth polar year as Eriva. The average price over 10 years is €16,48 and that of the last 5 years is €18,22. From the 2020 harvest year, the pool will continue as APF-Eriva, after both pools merged in November. announced. The details of this merger are being worked on behind the scenes, after which APF and Eriva will continue as 1 company with 1 pool.