Peter Hostens, head of fresh fruit and vegetables at Carrefour Belgium, told a PMA session that the main issue in European retail circles is price.

Drawing on his own country, he said that the discount sector in Belgium has expanded from five to 12 per cent in the last four years. "The challenge for the classic retailer is to compete on fresh products with these people," Hostens said. "Whereas two years ago we talked mainly about pesticides and food safety, now we are talking almost exclusively about price."

He added that the Carrefour approach is to "respect local habits and environments, and the needs of local customers. To be a big player in the world you have to put something back into the local communities in which you operate. Real partnerships with local producers are the way to create a sustainable future for agriculture".

Carrefour has 400,000 employees and more than 10,000 stores around the world, and is third on the world retailer list. Hostens admitted that the globalisation of the produce industry is not always a good thing. "Seasonality remains a vital issue and all-year round supply of fruit and vegetables has been forced further by category management. I think we have gone too far on this and often it is forgotten that there is a real season for every product.

"The consumers have forgotten the seasons to a large extent," he added, saying that it is the role of the entire industry to maintain the availability of produce while addressing the facts that melons, for instance, will not taste the same year-round.

To illustrate Carrefour's commitment to both local producers and seasonal issues, Hostens said: "In Belgium, half the apples consumed are Jonagold, but bi-coloured varieties are beginning to take over. It is very important to us that we protect the market share of the local producer and for the last four years we have been working very closely with Belgian top-fruit producers - who had not been paying enough attention to the quality of their fruit - to return the traditional tastes and values to the Jonagold crop. Now we have a new variety of Jonagold and we are trying to replace at least some of the volume of imported fruit with domestic product."

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