Belgium's BelOrta was formed at the end of 2012 by the merger of two nearby auctions in the St-Katelijne-Waver region, Mechelse Veilingen and Coöbra, creating a new auction with annual sales of more than €300m.
However, the combined auction’s strong focus on vegetables and limited fruit offering has quickly inspired plans for a second merger.
“We are working on a merger with Veiling Borgloon in Limburg,” said director Chris De Pooter. “We hope this will be completed in January 2014. It would give us greater volumes of apples, pears and berries, and allow our customers to come to us for all locally grown produce. Before, we struggled to supply our biggest customers with items like topfruit, so this would make us more attractive to the supermarkets.”
Although the two auctions’ growers still have to vote on the proposed merger, with 80 per cent needed to be in favour, the auctions’ boards have already signed a memorandum of understanding.
“The growers are becoming bigger, retailers are becoming bigger, so the platform that brings the two together needs to grow larger too,” explained De Pooter.
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