Hungarian strawberry growers expect a promising season

By: STA Date: 2023. 04. 21. 10:33

The heated cultivation of strawberries is slowly coming to an end, the domestic strawberry season begins with good flowering and crop prospects in the open field, although the cold weather causes some delays – the FruitVeB Hungarian Vegetable-Fruit Trade Organization and Product Council stated in response to a question from MTI.

(Photo: Pixabay)

The condition of the herds in the open field is particularly good, frost damage only occurred locally this year. In Hungary, greenhouse and heated cultivation only covers a few tens of hectares, a tiny fraction of the total area of more than 800 hectares. They added that in a large part of the gas-heated facilities, they did not even start cultivation at the usual time this year, but instead switched to cold operation.

The cold-film stocks are just starting to be harvested, so there is not a large volume of goods on the market

But there are already Hungarian strawberries in stores, the price per kilogram on the wholesale market is typically around HUF 3,000. Since the Mediterranean region “got cold” this year, there is hardly any import pressure – they noted. Temporarily, the prices of Spanish and Greek goods fell to 1,900-2,200 forints during the week from the previous level of around 1,200 forints. The quality of Hungarian strawberries is particularly good this year, even with imports, the demand is high, so much so that a demand market has clearly developed. Despite the rise in production costs, domestic producers maintain quality, they concluded. They added that several new strawberry plantations were established due to the successful planting tenders, but these will primarily be produced for industrial processing. The produce from here will not overwhelm the fresh market. Domestic cultivation is still dominated by the particularly good-tasting Clery, Joly and Asia varieties, as the volume of Hungarian strawberry exports is marginal (only 50-80 tons per year), so when choosing a variety, the main consideration is not shelf life, but flavor.

A good season is expected

The product council reminded: last season, slightly less than average, around 5,000 tons of crops were harvested at especially low sales prices. They added that due to the cold weather affecting the Mediterranean region, it is hoped that the annual import of around 3,500 tons will be less decisive this year. If the weather warms up slowly, i.e. the picking of the cold-foil and open-field stocks does not slip, the domestic growers can conclude a good season based on the current, very early prospects – they predicted.

MTI