TRADE AND MARKETING Amazing ideas at busy Fruit Logistica the market as it is this year? ‘Then it will be drama galore’, is how Buffen puts the current euphoria into perspective. He expects that his earlier prediction of an average market price of 18 to 24 euros per 100 kilogram of potatoes will most definitely come true this year. The market is not only about selling seed potatoes but also about transferring knowledge, say Eef Bruin and Ernst Arn. The first fresh potatoes from the field can be expected at the beginning of June. Buffen also tells them that Weuthen will seriously expand potato growing in the Netherlands. Agrodyn, a company based in Montfort, a village in the province of Limburg, will be the German company’s agent and will trade potatoes in the southern part of the Netherlands. This development was also helped by Agrico’s recent closure of its chip potato branch. Buffen expects that 40 percent of the cooperative’s previous consumption growers will turn to Weuthen. Of the remaining 60 percent, 20 percent will go to Nedato and 40 percent to Aviko, according to the director. This last group mostly consists of storage potato growers. Buffen hopes that peace of mind will soon return to the chip potato growers and with it common sense. Prices are good this year but what if next year is a normal growing season again and Russia is not as prominent on Early crop in Montpellier A bit further on in the aisles, we met the Dutch potato merchant Daan Dees of Terrapoint, who also expected a bigger acreage of early potatoes this year and, what is more, worked on that himself, for the potato trader from the province of Zeeland has already contracted 50 hectares of early potatoes in the French region around Montpellier. ‘The weather was very good at the beginning of February and the acreage has been entirely planted with potatoes of the Bellini variety. In about a hundred days, I expect them to be sent to Holland by Butter.’ This means that Dees expects to have around 2,000 tons of fresh consumption potatoes on hand at the beginning of June. Growth is Nedato’s objective The Nedato stand has director Heero Gramsma busy talking to a group of Russian traders. A conversation like this is illustrative of the annual growth in exports, Gramsma says. This is also the main reason why the Cooperative has come to Fruit Logistica. ‘We are meeting many of our existing customers here, but every year we add a few new ones to our list of buyers’, the Nedato director states in a matter-of-fact way. ‘An increase in turnover is an important objective of our company. It means that we can utilise our modern machinery better and our costs are better distributed.’ Growing, but marketing as well Ernst Arn, financial director of Van Rijn-KWS, observes yet another trend in Eastern Europe. What he sees is that professionalism in the market is persistently thriving in this part of the world. ‘We know of an investor who is buying 500,000 hectares of land to grow a whole range of crops. Companies like this are looking for a business-to-business manager to realise all their plans to grow and sell. Thanks to the recent merger with KWS, we are now able to offer a wide range of planting stock’, explains Arn. ‘This is not only about selling seed potatoes, but also about making knowledge available and making contact with partners in the potato chain. It is the investor’s intention to grow and process those thousands of hectares of potatoes in the best possible way’, export manager Eef Bruin sums up. Stefanie Sønnichsen (l) of the German supermarket chain Metro is listening with great interest to the explanation by Hans Gehling and Jan de Craen (second left) about the new pay-off. Pure Potato Pleasure A new trend in the world of potato selling is the pay-off. A pay-off is an extra addition to a brand name or logo as a result of which a product attracts more attention. The extra is one of the things that has been taken over from other sectors such as the world of glasshouse vegetables. The Tasty Tom tomato is an example of a pay-off. Take your Time, Taste a Tom! Or the pointed peppers of SweetPoint that have as a 14 Potato World 2011 • number 2 Pagina 13

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