A two-day transport strike in Spain finished on Wednesday as drivers ironed out grievances with government and industry, although fresh produce senders and UK importers do not expect deliveries to get back to normality until Sunday.
“We have been running short,” said Peter Davis of Davis of Louth. “We are just finishing northern European supplies of salads, broccoli and courgettes and switching into Spanish supplies, but we only had one pallet of aubergine delivered this morning when we were expecting eight, for example.”
Salad lines have been the hardest hit by the action as exporters of less perishable lines were able to plan ahead.
Cirilo Arnandis, president of Valencia’s citrus co-operatives said: “Senders have tried to cover market requirements by sending fruit in advance to the UK over last weekend before the strike began. Clementine sendings are back on track and we expect the campaign to continue as normal now.”
The situation was different further south in Murcia where strike action took a deeper hold. “Sendings of grapes, lemons and plums to the UK were affected,” said Rupert Maude of El Ciruelo. “We have also had a bit of bad weather which has hindered harvesting, but we expect the market to be back to normal by Sunday. It was not so bad in Valencia and I know they were loading on some days when we could not as the strike action was stronger here.”
Nevertheless, UK importers are still concerned that any unfulfilled orders with supermarkets and caterers will cost them a fine, despite the fact strike action on the part of hauliers was beyond their control.
The trucker-drivers were striking over a regional fuel tax introduced by the government a year ago, which was doubled last month to make up for a health-care budget shortfall. The truckers complained the fuel tax hit them unfairly as they are among the largest users of fuel. They also called on government to deal with unregulated competition in the sector.
The strike was called off when they secured a series of concessions following lengthy talks
