During the confinement, the Belgians turned massively to local businesses. Today, farms or small grocery stores are disillusioned: since the deconfinement, sales have been divided by three, in places. In terms of consumption, obviously, old habits die hard.
From the first weekend of confinement, Clement, market gardener in the province of Liège, was overwhelmed. “Cars were arriving, the parking lot was filling up, the bikes were piling up and people were even double-queuing on the road“, describes Clément.
The demand for fruits and vegetables increased sharply at that time; the Liégeois therefore had to organize. “We urgently tried to find a Bancontact device “, says Clement. “A friend, a hairdresser, who had to close her salon, lent us her Bancontact, and we could see the number of transactions. And we almost tripled the clientele. “
“We risk throwing”
However, today, disillusionment is in order: new customers have vanished while this producer had adapted to demand. This surplus production must now be disposed of. “We thought that people were going to go less on vacation this summer, but ultimately, it is not really the case. We are therefore left with too many salads to sell. We risk throwing. “
On this one hectare plot, dozens of varieties of seasonal fruits and vegetables are grown. Clément hoped for a change in consumption patterns, more locally oriented and sustainable. But the producer puts things into perspective. “Some people said ‘Thank you for being there, thank you for feeding us. We applaud you at 8 p.m., the doctors, the farmers, the nurses’, but it was a nice hypocrisy, anyway. “
Some customers remain convinced and we kept their habits “We saw that we needed them for several months, and we have to keep that in mind“, comments a client.
During confinement, the preference for local products had increased by 42%. Today, this trend is clearly revised downwards.
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