The significant price drop announced by Sensus for chicory contracts in 2026 is shaking up the sector. While three-year cultivation contracts were intended to provide stability for Sensus and growers, the base price for 2026 has plummeted by more than a quarter. This is a heavy blow for chicory growers. Read more about the price drop, the market conditions for Sensus, and the impact on chicory cultivation.
Chicory processor Sensus, based in Roosendaal, recently presented its contract prices for next year to its affiliated growers. The new contract prices for 2026 are significantly lower than this year's. The base price for one-year contracts will drop from €105 to €75 per tonne. This represents a 28,5% reduction.
For three-year contracts, the contract price will be €85 per tonne in 2026. This represents a €25 reduction compared to last year. The original target for the contracts was an average of €120 per tonne over three years. This would mean that the subsidiary of the sugar beet cooperative Cosun would have to pay a base price of €165 next year.
Import duties and exchange rates
That's not going to happen. This year's problems won't simply be wiped away. The 15% import tariffs imposed by the United States have severely impacted inulin sales. Moreover, inulin producers are facing more unfavorable exchange rate effects. As a result, sales to other destinations also generate fewer euros.
The consequences of all this are that the chicory processor is operating at a loss. Rumor has it, the company is losing €25 million. And that's precisely the crux of the matter. Without a profit, the agreement that Sensus must pay the agreed-upon average price of €120 per ton falls apart.
The need to drastically cut contract prices for next year is undermining confidence in chicory cultivation, even though the company made a concerted effort last year to rebuild trust.
One of the largest harvests
This year's contracts further expanded the chicory acreage by approximately 650 hectares to 3.766 hectares, according to figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS). With a yield of around 44 tons per hectare, production amounts to approximately 165.000 tons, making the processor's harvest one of the largest in the past ten years.
With the expansion of the area, cultivation this year will return to the size it reached in 2020 and 2021. In 2023, cultivation reached its lowest point in over fifteen years, at less than 2.700 hectares. With a price drop of around a quarter for the three-year and one-year contracts, an area of around 4.000 hectares, as in 2019, is at least becoming less of an option.