"We have had a great sweetcorn year," says Giel Hermans. "We started early this season and also finished quite on time. The last 10 hectares will be harvested this week and early next week, so we have two more weeks of Dutch corn and then make the transition to Spanish corn."
© Hermans Suikermais
"We have had quite a long, good summer, and that is ideal for corn consumption. At the same time, we saw shortages in markets like Scandinavia and Switzerland, so we were able to fill gaps there quite nicely, which again provided stability in the domestic market," Giel says. "A nice boost was that several retailers had sweetcorn on promotion multiple times. Retailers like Lidl also fully promoted corn for the first time this year, so that also looks good for the coming years."
Hermans Suikermaïs has now regained all its certificates, but the Limburg-based grower decided to stop using the PlanetProof hallmark. "This hallmark requires an investment of 12,500 euros for us, while it does not yield anything extra. If no extra is paid, it stops for us. Meanwhile, there is a whole discussion going on, so I expect more growers to follow, but we have already thrown in the towel."
© Izak Heijboer | FreshPlaza.com
This week, Giel is attending Fruit Attraction in Madrid. "It is ideal to meet our Spanish cultivation partners again. Cultivation in Spain is looking good, and from 15 October, we expect to supply our customers with Spanish corn again. So we have a year-round programme to always supply our customers with sweetcorn."
For more information:
Giel Hermans
Hermans Suikermaïs
Donk 1a
5995 PL Kessel
Tel: +31 (0) 6 5475 7764
[email protected]
www.mielies.nl