Poland: fruit and vegetables export trends

Warsaw - Since the accesion to the European Union, remarkable changes have occurred in the field of fruit and vegetables export from Poland. The best results of accesion can be seen in mushroom and table apple markets. The Polish export of fresh mushrooms have increased from several thousand MT in 1990 to more than 90 thousand MT in 2005. The total value of fresh mushroom exports from Poland - 120-130 million € in 2005 - is even higher than total value of table apple exports in the last few years (about 90 million € and 400 thousand MT in 2004 and 2005). Despite the growing export of fresh fruits, vegetables and mushrooms, the share of horticulture in agricultural products export from Poland decreases.

In 2003 the total value of fruit and vegetable products (fresh and processed) exported from Poland was estimated at 1,076 billion €, which accounted for 26,8% of agricultural products export, in 2005 – appropriately – 1,333 billion € and only 18,9%. Lower rate of horticultural products export increase is a result of only minor changes which occurred in the trade before and after Poland's accession to the EU (only in case of table apples, tomatoes, cucumbers and tomato paste some trade barriers existed before).

The main Polish problem is the growing decline of horticultural export value during last years. One of the most important reasons of such a situation can be seen in drastically lower prices of frozen fruits. This price decline was caused by increasing export of cheap frozen strawberries from China and Morocco and good quality raspberries from Serbia. On the other hand, a crisis in the frozen black currant market was caused by uncontrolled growth of production in Poland.

Publication date: January 31 2007
Author: FreshPlaza correspondent Poland
Copyright: www.freshplaza.com