The UK strawberry trade has experienced a crazy couple of months. The main UK production finished early, and lower Dutch volumes led to high prices for the longest period in many years, according to the Freshplaza.
“This situation has all been down to the weather and some UK growers throwing in the towel and not planting. Egypt is now in full flow, but even that started off tricky with a lack of airspace. Surprisingly, again other countries came in to close the gap such as Spain and South Africa” – says Ben Goodchild, Nationwide Produce.
The next challenge on strawberries for the next two months will be the increase in duty charged on imports from Egypt.
“Again, this year the UK government duty-free quota on Egyptian strawberries remains unchanged. By the 7th of December, we had already exceeded 30% of the quota without reaching peak demand. Based on my projection, the duty-free quota is expected to be depleted by January 13th, resulting in importers facing a consecutive second year of a 10% duty imposition on Egyptian Strawberries.”
According to Ben last year importers then moved to Spanish supply and Germany took up the Egyptian volumes.
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