The cucumber supply situation is going through a disastrous spell with the supply chain losing hundreds of thousands of pounds and contracts failing to be met.
FPJ learnt that one supplier lost £150,000 in a week on cucumbers alone, having to pay several times the price agreed with supermarket customers just to source the product. Others were forced to leave customers short as product could either not be found at all or supermarkets were not willing to budge on agreed contract prices and suppliers were unwilling to invoke force majeur clauses in their contracts and risk losing business with the multiples.
Weather, transport and holiday issues all collided to make the build up to Christmas and the weeks since extremely tough. “The issue for us was that there was a three-day strike in Almeria in December and then there were two days when we had no deliveries because of national holidays and Spanish drivers being unwilling to work over Christmas,” said Hedon Salads sales director Les Bennett.
He admitted there was a lot of financial pressure on cucumber supply. “They were retailing very low with some stores running half-price promotions before Christmas,” said Bennett. “As suppliers we just all had to work together.”
The main growing area of Almeria has also been experiencing very low light levels. “Almeria had cold weather in December but the main problem is that it was and still is cloudy, they are just not getting the light levels,” said Peter Davis of Davis of Louth. “Cucumbers are a disaster - we had to let down two customers and could only supply them with 48 per cent of the volume they wanted,” he said.
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