(25 Nov 2016) LEAD IN:
It's not just the retail industry that's working flat out this festive season, Denmark's Christmas tree industry - the largest exporter in Europe - is in full swing.
But these are challenging times. An abundance of trees and competition from regional suppliers is making it a difficult season.
STORY-LINE:
Santa Claus may not have begun his festive journey, but these Christmas trees have.
Here at the Arbodania Christmas tree farm in Lundby (around 80 kilometres southwest of Copenhagen), workers are busily supplying an annual harvest of around 500,000 trees to retailers across Europe.
The company grows Christmas trees across 1,100 hectares of land in the south of Denmark's Zealand island. At peak times it employs around 200 staff.
It's a frantic time of year and a period when mistakes can be costly, says company CEO, Michael Schnor.
"We have ten months of preparation and then we have ten weeks of performance," he says.
"And starting cutting in the beginning of November, gives us - let's say - four, five weeks and that's it.
"Then it all has to be done because it has to be to the stores where the consumer wants to buy the trees."
Arbodanina specialises in Nordmann firs, named after 19th century Finnish botanist Alexander von Nordmann who discovered it.
According to the Danish Christmas Tree Association, the small Scandinavian country grows around 11.5 million trees a year. About 9.5 million of those are exported.
The biggest markets are just south to Germany, but also France and the UK.
But these are challenging times for Denmark's Christmas tree industry, considered to be the largest exporter in all of Europe.
An abundance of trees and competition from regional suppliers is making it a difficult season.
"Over the zero years (2000s), we have had quite some people all over Europe maybe having too much money, spending, buying some land somewhere and thinking if they plant some trees, eight or ten years after they will develop gold out of the ground," says Schnor.
"Which is not the fact, but the trees are still coming and there are a lot of them."
That's a challenge being felt by all of Denmark's Christmas tree industry, estimated to produce an annual turnover of around 1.5 billion Danish kroner (approx. $213 million USD), according to its national association.
"This is a year where we have some difficulties selling the poor quality of our trees, but the good quality - easy to sell," says Claus Jerram Christensen, managing director of the Danish Christmas Tree Association.
"We see some increase in competition on many of our export markets, that could be for instance, Germany, France, but also UK have an increasing domestic production of Christmas trees."
Before the 2008 financial crisis, Denmark's Christmas tree industry was making inroads into Eastern Europe.
That was dealt a considerable blow, but now Poland is becoming a growth market.
"I think we are seeing a recovery, but we're not quite there," says Jerram Christensen
"Especially the eastern European countries, we were very interested in exporting to them as a new, upcoming market, but the 2008 financial crisis sent them somewhat back.
"They want our trees, we know that, but they have not had the ability to pay."
Even currency fluctuations thought to be caused by Britain's June vote to leave the European Union is having an effect on trade.
Jerram Christensen says a weak pound has meant Danish sellers have struggled to achieve prices achieved even last year.
"That's of course sad for them because UK is a good market to export to."
Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]
You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
