The Wexford strawberry will not be jeopardised in this crisis

GOREY’S John Green of Green’s Berry Farm has confidence in this year’s Wexford strawberry being as good as ever as the weather has lent itself kindly to the crop, but movement restrictions could be significantly damaging for business with less face to face visitors.

Having worked in the industry for close to 35 years, John has seen first hand how the market and consumer demand has changed, particularly in relation to quality expectations.

Due to the Covid-19 restrictions, John has attempted to delay the fruiting harvest to June 1, realising that the May bank holiday won’t be bringing visitors this year.

‘There should have been a right stream of people down from Dublin. On the best of days about 20,000 cars pass our gates, at the moment there’s not 10% of that passing. About 15 years ago, we supplied most of the supermarkets but we had to change that due to the margin. So we decided to make the most of our prime location, got the quality up and charged an appropriate price and over the last number of years that has worked really well. We never had two better seasons than in 2018 and 2019.

‘But as the days go on, I’m getting a little bit more uncertain. We could have a season that’s just July, August and September and I’d be a little scared about that’.

John believes that there has to be a balance that preserves the health of the population and the health of the economy.

‘Particularly in Gorey and places that depend on the summer season, we can all survive without an April and a May, but if you ask the businesses to close down for an entire summer, a lot of them won’t reopen and it’ll be a disaster.

‘We will survive as we have the alternative of going down the supermarket road as an outlet’.

John said that if things are improving on the health side of things, as a nation we’ ll have to start lifting restrictions for the economy as well as peoples’ mental health.

As strawberries continue to grow, the issue that John faces as a businessman is having employees to pick those ripe strawberries.

At this time of year in normal circumstances, John would fly in his seasonal workers from Slovakia, Poland and the Ukraine who get a weekly commissioned wage from €750 to €1,000.

‘The strawberries don’t know about Covid-19 and the weather has been so good, the light levels are very high for this time of year so it has been hard to slow them down.

‘I’ve had about ten applications in total from teenagers, and two applications J1 students. What I say to those enquiring is that I don’t need somebody for a week or two, I need someone for the whole season from June to October. My customers arrive at the gate at 8.30 a.m. and they want that morning’s fruit, which means it has to picked at 6.30 a.m. That’s what the consumer is demanding, and we’ve got to provide that. So if you want to come pick strawberries here, you’re going to have to be available seven days, to do five or six days work, including Sunday at 6.30 a.m. every morning.

‘The work itself is all raised off the ground with trolleys, but ideally I’d like someone over the age of 18. The money is good if you’re a good picker but it’s tedious, the same every day and that’s what I tell the applicants. When I tell them that, very few come back’.