Egypt has become the largest supplier of sweet potato into the European Union, ahead of the United States. Two structural reasons sit behind that: the Nile Delta harvest fills the months when American supply into Europe is thinnest, and the transit from Egyptian ports to northern Europe is about a week rather than a fortnight. Shorter transit means fresher arrival and less working capital tied up on the water.
A large share of the volume that reaches buyers in Belgium and beyond arrives repacked through the Netherlands rather than direct. For an importer that usually means an extra handling step and an extra margin in the chain.
If you want your own carton printed, the decision has to be made in spring for an autumn programme, because board has to be printed before the packhouse starts running. If you want a fixed price across the peak, you are negotiating in early summer, before the crop is lifted and before the supplier knows what they have.
Buyers who wait until October to start talking are buying spot in the busiest month of the year, against buyers who committed in June. That is the single most expensive habit in seasonal produce purchasing.
A seasonal programme — an agreed volume per week across a defined window — buys you priority on size mix when the crop is short, which is the thing that actually matters. Spot buying is cheaper when the market is long and painful when it is not, and in a short season the spot buyer is the one who gets the sizes nobody else wanted.
Ask any supplier for a season calendar by size rather than a general availability statement, and hold them to it in the programme. A supplier who will commit to size mix by month is telling you they know their growers.
