The persistent rainfall has also hit Tyrolean vegetable growing extremely hard this year. "We have already suffered serious harvest losses of up to 70-80 per cent compared to the previous year, particularly in the field of lettuce. Due to the waterlogging, the lettuce is constantly starting to rot, which is why most of it is unsaleable. To make matters worse, some of the fields are completely inaccessible, which is why we can't even harvest the crops properly," Marcus Pechtl, vegetable grower in the Tyrolean district of Imst, told us on enquiry.

According to Pechtl, the wet field conditions are having a particularly negative impact on lettuce cultivation, but the situation is different for storage products, i.e. potatoes, carrots, leeks and celery. "With net yields of 94-95 tonnes/hectare, our potato stocks are not doing too badly. Accordingly, we have also been able to realise price reductions here in order to further boost sales. These are old potato varieties." Lettuce prices are currently at around the same level as last year, the report continues.

Inflation affects B2C business
Pechtl's main customers include the regional catering and hotel industry as well as wholesalers, including suppliers to leading supermarket chains. Part of the revenue goes directly to private customers in the neighbourhood. Pechtl: "The latter line of business boomed during the pandemic, but is currently proving extremely difficult due to inflation and lower purchasing power. People are increasingly watching their money and buying from supermarkets instead of regional producers." According to Pechtl, sales in the B2C business are even below pre-corona levels. However, he describes the mood in the regional catering industry as mediocre. "Sometimes someone drops out and sometimes someone joins. Overall, however, the customer base remains relatively constant."

Focus on quality and variety
The cornerstones of the medium-sized vegetable farm are high quality and a wide variety of products. Around 40 crops can be found in the fields in Pitztal. "We have replaced our mixed lettuces such as the Lolo varieties with Italian quality varieties such as Salabella, Canasta and Trentina because we were particularly impressed by the head size and firmness of these varieties. These lettuces are expected to be ready for harvest at the end of September. Another new addition to the range is butcher's onions, which are very popular in the catering trade and normally have to be sourced mainly from Spain. Our aim is to offer a regionally produced, high-quality and cheaper alternative to the Spanish product," explains Pechtl.

Founding of Europa fresh GmbH
In addition to his existing activities, Pechtl founded Europa fresh GmbH a few months ago. "We want to continue to grow with this new limited company. We are already in the process of gradually expanding our cultivation capacities so that we can also supply customers abroad with our vegetables in future," he concludes.

Source - https://www.freshplaza.com