Quebec strawberries have arrived, but you might find yourself paying more

Fruit lovers look forward to Quebec strawberries arriving in stores every year, but to start the season they can be more expensive than foreign products.

If you’ve been to the grocery store lately you may have noticed that Quebec strawberries are often more expensive than ones imported from the United States and other foreign countries.

At the Esposito grocery store in Montreal’s NDG neighbourhood on Tuesday, strawberries from California were being sold for $3.99, and FraiseBec strawberries grown right here in Quebec were being sold for $6.99.

“Of course it bothers us,” said Jasmine Sauvé, director general of the Strawberry and Raspberry Growers Association of Quebec.

Our sunny spring has caused Quebec berries to be ready two weeks earlier than usual, but according to Sauvé, the early harvest has coincided with the production peak in California.

She says foreign producers have so many strawberries that they’re dumping them here, in some cases even selling them at a loss.

“It’s not easy for us to have those kinds of prices at the beginning of the season,” said Pier-Luc Deschamps, operations director at FraiseBec, a producer about 60 km north of Montreal in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines. “It’s way below our production costs right now.”

He is thrilled with the prosperous early harvest, but also knows with cheap foreign product flooding the shelves right now, his berries are operating at a disadvantage.

“What they’re doing is they’re dumping their overproduction on our market and selling those strawberries beside our Quebec strawberries. It’s very hard,” said Sauvé.