Fruits and vegetables, even if they can be produced locally, are sometimes sold outside the Belgian season to satisfy consumer demand. A situation that implies a larger environmental footprint… sometimes even higher than if these products were imported from abroad. Explanations.
We went to a supermarket in Namur. On the shelves, cherries are beginning to appear. On the packages that we come across, it is indicated that they come from Spain. “We in Belgium will start with the cherry season around mid-June. For a short period, because the period is not long in Belgium. Then we’ll go on Canadian and American cherries“, explains Yohan François, manager of the fresh section.
For Anne-Marie, a customer, the watchword is to eat as locally as possible. She will therefore have to be quick to buy Belgian cherries in this store. “For me it is very important that the fruits and vegetables do not come from Flanders. Because I find that Wallonia must be made to work, that we have good producers and that seems important to me“, she confides to us.
Zucchini is in demand all year round, whereas it is a product which, in Belgium, is grown for three months
We take the direction of another supermarket in the region. He mainly works with local producers. However, there too, we find 10% vegetables and 50% fruits that come from abroad. “For example, we have tomatoes here, which are heirloom tomatoes. It is a French production in this case, because we want to lengthen the season, because the Belgian tomatoes do not arrive until the end of July“, says Germain Ladam, fruit and vegetable manager of the establishment.
The same goes for courgettes: the store sells seven tons of them each year. “Zucchini is in demand all year round, whereas it is a product which, in Belgium, is grown for three months“, specifies Germain Ladam.
The environmental impact of off-season production
Supplying products outside the Belgian seasons implies a larger ecological footprint. “Compared to local, on the carbon footprint we will multiply by two, by four, even times ten depending on the study and depending on the fruit or vegetable that we study“, explains Renaud De Bruyn, in charge of expertise in food and waste at the non-profit organization Écoconso.
This specialist insists on the fact that it is not enough to consume locally, it is also necessary to opt for seasonal vegetables and fruits. “A Swiss study had shown like that, for green beans precisely, that having local Swiss beans for Switzerland, which were grown out of season in heated greenhouses, had as much impact as fresh beans imported from Spain or Egypt“, confides Renaud De Bruyn.
Freeze to eat later
To consume local, seasonal and varied all year round, a customer gives us her tip. “We are sometimes also take frozen, or we freeze things that we have accumulated during the summer, that we have grown in the summer, and suddenly we eat them afterwards in winter to have more diversity“, explains Céline. Despite everything, she admits to agreeing to a few deviations from time to time, as for the bananas that she puts in her basket, for example.