Is carrot market too quiet for time of year?

The price for carrots is still around €25 per 100 kilos. However, growers are willing to pay higher prices for carrots from refrigeration, but the demand does not seem to be there this year. This is striking, because during the growing season it was reported that yields in Europe would be significantly lower.

The latter ultimately also applied to early carrots, but the situation is clearly different for storage carrots. Quite a few kilos have been added in recent months.

Less revenue?
However, yields in Europe are somewhat lower. In Germany, which is the largest sales market for the Netherlands, a yield of 93.800 tons was achieved. That is 4% less than last year. Yields are also more than 10% lower in Poland. However, those are relatively small percentages. In England it is said that the lower yield is not too bad. The country would have sufficient carrots until April/May.

In addition, traders do not immediately notice that lower returns have been achieved. In fact, there is currently more carrot in the Netherlands than there was last year. Although sometimes fewer boxes come from the field, the net yield is often better; more kilos come out of the box (80 to 90 kilos) and the quality is good.

Question comes later
The carrot trade is usually very busy at this time of year (due to the holidays). Stock is normally stored from Germany in particular, but that is not the case this year. This is a sign that yields in the latter country are not much lower. Traders expect demand to pick up around March/April.