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European Fruit Magazine

French supermarkets stop import strawberries in winter

This winter, French supermarket chains Intermarché and Netto are no longer going to sell fresh strawberries and cherries from abroad. The reason mentioned was the CO2 emissions caused by transport by truck, ship and/or plane. In winter, for instance, cherries are supplied by plane from Chile and Argentina. In this period, strawberries mainly come from Spain and Morocco.
Intermarché and Netto, respectively have, 1,800 (of which 166 are in Belgium) and 400 shops. At the same time, with this measure, they want to impress upon their own French growers that they intend to focus more on domestic production. According to critics this is a form of greenwashing. They fear, that if other countries are going to apply a similar strategy, this may have a negative impact for French farmers.