Norwegian Christmas trees are popular abroad. In Moscow, Russians are willing to pay up to 3,000 kroner for luxury ‘edelgran’ from western Norway.
Managing Director, John-Anders Strande, of the industry organisation Norsk Juletre, told Nationen newspaper, that that is a record price. Also in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, Norwegian Christmas trees achieve very good prices.
‘The price development for Norwegian Christmas trees abroad should be a powerful incentive for Norwegian farmers to invest more in the cultivation of Christmas trees.
Today, too few ‘edelgran’ are produced in Norway to meet growing demand both in Norway, and Europe’, believes Strande.
He claims that more and more people look to Norwegian Christmas trees to maintain high quality.
‘At the same time, the European market is becoming more and more environmentally conscious, and has concluded that Norway has strict rules for what is allowed in terms of different means of cultivating Christmas trees,’ says Strande.
According to Strande, the Norwegian Christmas market is worth just under NOK one billion.
He estimates that this year, 1.8 million households in Norway will have a Christmas tree. One million of them will come from Norwegian Christmas tree producers.
About 50,000 will chop the tree in the forest on their own, while around 350,000 households will have a plastic tree.
‘This year we will import about 400,000 trees from Denmark,’ said the head of Norsk Juletre.
NTB Scanpix / Norway Today
