One of Sweden’s largest tomato growers stops growing during the winter
Nordic Greens, one of the largest tomato growers in both Denmark and Sweden, has announced that it will not grow any tomatoes during the winter in its Sweden-based farm due to sky-high electricity prices. “We have 5 hectares of illuminated cultivation,” says Mads Pedersen, CEO of the company. “And we had to remove that because the electricity prices are just ridiculous. We wouldn’t have been able to pay for the increased cost. That’s why we decided to skip this cycle.”
The company has approximately 160,000 square meters of greenhouses, of which 20,000 are equipped with LED lighting that is on 18 hours a day. Typically between 30 and 40 tonnes of tomatoes are grown each week during the winter. For the first time in eight years, the company has chosen to cancel the plants that were to be planted in a few weeks.
“It hits us hard, really hard. It simply costs too much with the lighting, but it’s still too early to say exactly how big a break it will be for us financially,” says site manager Mindaugas Krasauskas. Mads points out that if prices go down, they will start growing again. “But we usually start another round in January. So we’ll see how it goes then.”
According to Urdu pointaround 500 tons of tomatoes will disappear from store shelves this winter because of the shutdown.
Source: aftonbladet.se