The harvesting of carrots has been less successful. Especially when you compare it to last year, it is now going very well. The biggest concern is the temperature.
20 degrees in the afternoon at the end of October is quite exceptional. For real carrot storage it is not such a problem to cool down sufficiently quickly. In cold stores where the capacity is only so-so, it is risky whether it is possible to cool the carrot sufficiently quickly with such outside temperatures.
Yield, and perhaps even more importantly quality of the carrots is generally good this season. The length may be a bit less, but that is compensated by the thickness. And also not unimportant: all plants are there.
Exports still need to pick up
Now renting cold storage space is not easy according to insiders. The ex-land trade is fairly quiet. Some is regularly shipped to Africa, but that does not really help. It is still too early in the season for Eastern Europe. They still have plenty of their own harvest. The growing season in Poland did not go according to plan. After a warm and dry start, a wet summer and autumn followed. A bit comparable to what we had last year. The quality of the carrots in Poland is therefore disappointing, according to various sources. This may offer opportunities for Dutch exporters later in the season, now that we finally have a year in which it seems that we can really deliver quality.
The trade between Dutch growers and washers is tough. If exporters really want to compete in Eastern Europe, they have to make very sharp cuts. The current grower prices do not fit in with that. Growers who have to deliver from the field are not yet keen to make concessions now. If things go somewhat normally, there is still more than a month to harvest. The DCA quotation for b-carrots remained the same this week at €14 to €15 per 100 kilos. C-carrots took a small step back compared to last week to also €14 to €15.
Read here is the explanation from DCA Market Intelligence on the new quotations.