Bad harvests drive commodity costs up further

Manufacturers should prepare themselves for another round of commodity price spikes as poor weather continues to hamper the harvest.

The last of the UK pears are currently being harvested, Adrian Barlow chief executive of English Apples and Pears said. But he warned that price increases were inevitable.

The UK’s pear harvest was 15% down on last year due to frost in March, said Barlow. In addition Belgium was down 38% and Holland was down 33%. Overall the EU was down 14%.

“Not only will supplies become tighter,” he added, “but the cost of growing and harvesting pears and apples has gone up by more than 15% over the last 12 months due to fuel, fertiliser and labour costs. Prices are going to have to reflect these increases.”He said that the price of importing fruit had also gone up due to the poor exchange rates of the pound.

“Like all harvests, costs have shot up since last year,” Rob Burrow market information manager of the British Potato Council said. After a bad start, the potato harvest was now almost 50% complete. But it was still 10 days behind average.

Burrow said that potato costs were £127 per tonne compared with £106 a year ago. He said that overall yields were average or below, with wet rots becoming an issue.

The status report followed a particularly troublesome UK wheat harvest, largely due to one of the wettest Augusts on record. The National Farmers’ Union estimated that the situation would cost farmers millions of pounds, pushing up the cost of bread making varieties.

The bad weather also increased costs because crops had been sprayed for more than six weeks to stop them getting infected with disease, in addition to the expense of extra drying.

The apple harvest appeared to be much more positive. After a bad start in September with heavy rain, farmers were now well into the harvest. The much improved weather meant that the Bramley crop was up 10% on last year, according to English Apples and Pears. The Cameo variety, which was still to be harvested looked good in appearance but had lower than usual sugar levels.