The chief of one of Europe’s leading vegetable processors has claimed that it is a matter of “national interest” for UK retailers to help the sector ride out the recent severe floods in the country.
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Herwig Dejonghe, CEO of Belgium-based Pinguin, said he is hoping for an “open debate” with UK supermarkets as the vegetable sector bids to survive the wet weather, which has hit crops in the country.
The UK pea harvest, for instance, is likely to be down by 30% after heavy rain and floods hit the Midlands and the UK last month.
Dejonghe told just-food today (2 August): “I’m hoping that we can have an open debate. It is a matter of national interest about whether the retailers really want to support the farmers and factories to survive the situation.
“The floods are a very unique thing, they have never happened before. Supermarkets and consumers have to understand that this (cost) has to be paid back.”
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By GlobalDataPinguin, which has two processing sites in the UK, is in the process of streamlining operations at one of the facilities. Some 120 jobs look set to go at Pinguin’s Boston site in a bid to boost efficiency from the business.
Dejonghe said that, although the cutbacks would have been made anyway, weather conditions in the UK had made it more urgent to revamp the company’s operations at the site.
“The weather has speeded up the process. I decided that we needed to restructure immediately,” he said. “The pea crop has been severely touched in such a way that I have never seen before.”
Dejonghe described the conditions in the UK sector as “very painful” but said there have been “bad pea crops” in Belgium, France, Spain and the Netherlands.
