The Spanish fresh produce industry is calling for redress after it was proven not to be the source of the E. coli outbreak.
Amid the fury over blame, the cucumber and tomato industry is flooded with product as sales plummet and borders close to product.
On Tuesday, German officials conceded Spanish exports are not the source of the problem, which it is estimated could cost the Spanish 70,000 jobs and €200 million a week.
Spanish producer exporters association Fepex said on Wednesday: “It is an urgent priority to get European markets back to normal and re-establish confidence in Spanish fresh produce after Germany yesterday lifted the blame for its e-coli outbreak from Spanish cucumbers.
“These accusations have caused us serious economic damage as almost all fresh produce sendings from Spain to the rest of Europe have been halted. That is why Fepex believes it is absolutely vital to approve urgent crisis management measures to move the stocks that have built up over the last few days.”
Fepex is calling for producers - including the two companies erroneously implicated Malaga-based Frunet Bio and co-operative group Costa de Almeria - to be compensated at market prices and for product withdrawn from sale to be donated to charities to distribute fee of charge. It is also calling for the European Commission to take on board the costs of the withdrawal based on its “responsibility for issuing the unjustified food alert”.
“As well as the direct economic losses, Fepex believes that there has been an even greater loss and that is the damage to the image of the sector and confidence among buyers and consumers”.
Importer-exporter Peter Davis told freshinfo: “It is not just Spain. Salad sales have fallen out of bed this morning: we did no salad sales at all today. There are so many cucumbers and tomatoes in the Netherlands you can buy 6kg for £1.53 delivered to the UK. All frontiers are being closed. Russia has stopped shipments from Spain, Belgium and Italy. This will definitely have a long-term effect. The media has picked it up and the whole of Europe is panicking. The salads market has just collapsed, sales haven’t just dropped, they have stopped. The biggest thing will be if Russia bans product from the Netherlands as well. That would have enormous implications for the market. “
Aguilar has asked farm commissioner Dacian Ciolos to put in place extraordinary measures within the framework of the EU fruit and vegetable regime to help those producers affected by the crisis.
Meanwhile, Clara Aguilera, the agriculture minister at the Andalucia regional government has visited production at Frunet, one of the firms which supplied organic cucumbers to Germany that first sparked the e-coli food alert. Aguilera ate cucumbers fresh from the plant on Monday and declared that food quality and safety systems “worked without problems”.
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