Road transport: tons of fruit and vegetables being pulped and a boom in imports

The damage and the insult. While in recent days, due to the blockade of road transport in the regions of Southern Italy, tons of fresh Italian agri-food and fish products, if they have not perished in the field without being collected or in ports after being disembarked from fishing boats, have been literally sent to waste due to the impossibility of conserving them, the network of wholesale markets has turned mainly abroad to try to fill the gaps in supply.

The blockade of road transport in Italy has therefore favored agricultural and fish production in Spain, Greece, Albania and Türkiye. This was made known by Italmercati, the network of wholesale agri-food markets which in Italy has 22 participating markets throughout the national territory, 4 thousand companies, 7 million tonnes of products moved per year for a turnover of 11 billion euros and 26 thousand employees.

«As the Italmercati Network – commented the president of Italmercati, Fabio Massimo Pallottini – we are constantly monitoring the impact of the protests and blockades on our national logistics hubs. At the moment we continue to record a marked decline in fruit and vegetable arrivals from Southern Italy, in particular from Sicily and Calabria, but the system is holding up. The markets are managing to guarantee supplies by balancing with local production and with an inevitable increase in imports from abroad, primarily from Spain, but also from Greece, Türkiye and Albania. Prices are high but for some products they are still under control. However, we hope for a quick resolution so as not to further burden the entire agri-food chain and especially families."

In the last week, supply difficulties have also been recorded in the capital's supermarkets. «The protests by hauliers against high fuel prices and the consequent road blocks in Southern Italy - they commented from the Rome Agri-Food Center (CAR) - are putting the entire fruit and vegetable supply chain under strong pressure. The latest survey by our Observatory has signaled a growing criticality in fruit and vegetable supplies destined for the Capital, due to uncertainty about travel times and high operating costs which are triggering a chain effect which prevents farms from shipping perishable goods and threatens the regular arrival of fresh products on the markets. The emergency, initially concentrated in Campania, Sicily, Calabria and Puglia, is currently spreading and has also affected the southern area of ​​Lazio".

On the Roman market, the lack of deliveries of crucial products from the South, such as peppers, aubergines, table grapes and tomatoes, are increasingly evident. The Observatory notes strong tension on wholesale prices due to the scarcity of the product: Sicilian Ciliegini and Piccadilly tomatoes are marketed (wholesale, not retail) at prices above 5 euros/kg, while red Datterini tomatoes reach 7.50 euros/kg.