Sweden faces Midsommar strawberry shortage
Would Midsommar even be Midsommar without Swedish strawberries? Well millions may be about to find out.
At Västernäs strawberry farm just outside Höör in central Skåne, there’s only about 15 percent as many berries as usual for this time of year.
“The problem this year with the Midsommar strawberries is we are coming just between the early varieties and the late varieties,” says Torbjörn Sterner Johansson, whose family has been running the farm for four generations.
“We have about I would say 10 percent to 15 percent of what we could sell this week.”
Sterner Johansson blames Sweden’s unusually warm and sunny May, which pushed the early varieties, which are normally timed to peak at Midsommar, to flower and fruit two weeks early.
With more than half of Sweden’s strawberry production coming from Skåne and southern Småland, where the weather has been the same as in Höör, Johansson expects the country to rely on imports from Holland and Belgium to meet the Midsommar surge.
“It’s a catastrophe. We can’t buy strawberries anywhere because everybody’s sold out,” he says. “But of course people will survive without strawberries for Midsommar. I think life will go on.”
Source Radio Sweden
