Prices for a range of Spanish-grown fruits and vegetables tumbled during May in the first indication of the damage the E.coli crisis, initially linked to Spanish cucumbers, is likely to cause to the country’s horticultural exports.
During last month, average prices received for tomatoes and lettuce exports dropped by over 13 per cent and 12 per cent respectively compared with the same period a year before, according to official figures from Spain’s ministry of industry, tourism and trade.
Similarly, sales of green peppers fell by 12 per cent during the month, while lemon export sales decreased by 10 per cent.
On a monthly basis, there were also decreases in export sales recorded for green beans (9 per cent) and green peppers (10 per cent) compared with sales in April.
However, the figures revealed better news for Canary Islands’ bananas, with sales – primarily to the Iberian peninsula – up by 25 per cent from May 2010 and by over 5 per cent from April this year. Compared with last May, potato export sales also increased by 12 per cent.
But while the figures do show a substantial decrease for a range of export products, the majority of sales are likely to have been made before Spanish cucumbers were publicly, and falsely, linked by the German authorities with the E.coli outbreak on 26 May.
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