Casablanca Fruit and Vegetable Prices Soar Amid Supply Chain Disruptions

While acknowledging a significant drop in the volume of quantities received directly from farmers compared to the same period in 2019, the wholesalers believe that this in no way justifies the soaring costs.

Even if the law of supply and demand can partly explain this price fluctuation, the wholesalers denounce "the greed" of the retailers who are responsible for the disruption of the chain, from the farmer to the consumer.

"The variation in fruit and vegetable prices is linked to supply and demand in the market. It is also a question of a transitional period, between the end of the summer season and the approach of the autumn crops," explained, in a statement to MAP, the secretary general of the Casablanca fruit and vegetable wholesale market association, Abderrazak Echabbi.

Carrots were sold at 2 dirhams/kg on September 8, onions at 1.5 DH/kg, peppers at 1.5 DH/kg and potatoes between 3 and 3.5 DH/kg.

Tomatoes are sold between 3 and 4 dirhams per kilogram at wholesalers, while the consumer has to pay between 8 and 9 dirhams to buy this essential food for household consumption.

Apples and bananas are not spared either. At the wholesale market, they cost 5.5 and 7 dirhams per kilo respectively. At the retailer, these costs experience an unexplained increase for the season, laments Abderrazak Echabbi, who insists on intensifying control operations.

Faced with this situation, the association calls for the activation of control patrols and the revision of the law relating to the liberalization of prices.