Last year KX Food decided to import its own cultivated garlic, and since last week they offer Chinese garlic. Currently, the market is good. “At the end of 2015 prices were 20 euro for 10 kilograms, and now they are between 32 and 34 euro,” Fleur Feijen of KX Food says. She indicates that KX Food examined whether the European market was interested in the 55+ garlic at the end of 2015. “This test was successful, which is why we introduced the garlic this season.”
Africa and Pakistan the most important buyers
Currently KX Food has a small stock, which they will market in coming weeks. “Our customers can choose from three different sizes. For example, we have boxes of 40x250 gram nets, 20x500 gram nets, and 10 kilograms loose in bulk.” The Chinese parent company of KX Food cultivates a large volume of garlic. “In total, we can fill about 200 to 300 containers per year with this. The largest part of this is now sold to Africa and Pakistan. Especially that last country is a very interesting market for us, as they tend to go easy on quality requirements, and besides, Pakistanis are prepared to pay high prices for our garlic.”
European market protected
KX Food wants to focus more on the European market in coming years. “This is still a somewhat more difficult process, since we are dealing with mandatory application of licenses here. As multiple countries in Europe cultivate their own garlic as well, the European market is protected against too much import of garlic from other continents. Firstly, only a set number of these licenses is issued by the government, so we must ensure that we are one of the companies that gets one. Secondly, this naturally means that we are dealing with higher costs, which we unfortunately have to calculate into our prices as well.”
Less harvest, increase in prices expected
From April until June no new containers from China will be shipped. “This is a general given in the entire garlic market, for there is a large chance that the bulbs sprout during this period, and, naturally, no one will be happy with that. From June, new garlic bulbs will be harvested from our farmland in Shandong Province in China. In recent months, however, it has been very cold for the time of year, and about ten to twenty per cent of our plants have unfortunately not survived the severe cold. We therefore expect an increase in prices this year, but for now the market is stable,” Feijen concludes.
