Poland: Ambitious expansion plans for tomato grower Mularski
With an ambitious 80 hectare expansion plan due to begin in 2015 - that will take up to five years to complete, Murlaski doesn’t seem overly concerned about saturating the market with Polish-grown tomatoes and cucumbers.
As part of the second generation to take over the family business, Murlaski believes the key to success is understanding the market for their products, and that the demand for greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers will continue to rise in their target markets (in particular Poland and its neighbouring countries), as supermarket retailers grow ever bigger and more powerful.
“Of course we are nervous about it but the market is a market, you must be looking for it but you also need to know the condition of the market. Essentially, somebody has to produce because the people want to buy,” he says confidently.
“In Poland we think about 70% of tomatoes and cucumbers are sold by the big [supermarket] players. The small markets are becoming less and less; for a producer the best profit you can get is from the small open market - but we don’t see the small open markets growing any time soon,” Murlaski says.
His confidence in the market going forward is also due to their ability to make contracts directly with the large retailers in Poland and Germany, and having the company infrastructure to meet all the supermarkets’ requirements. They currently grow and supply different varieties of strawberry tomatoes, tomatoes-on-the-vine (TOVs) and cucumbers.
Every year they also grow some speciality lines, although he was not prepared to say what they are!
“We have our own transport company and we have the pre-pack station if the clients wants. If they want 5kg boxes of TOVs we can do it. Or 6kg boxes of tomatoes we can do that. All processes from the greenhouse to the client, we can do it,” says Marcin.
Although 2013 was not a great financial year with low prices, according to Marcin, the cost of energy in Poland has gone down by 1 0 – 15 percent in the last two years. They are now looking to Russia, to see what happens in the future," he says, “In Polish agriculture 95% of greenhouses are heated by coal, and not gas.”
Not that coal should pose a problem any time soon, especially as they have secured a contract with one of the biggest coal-fired power plants in Poland to supply two of their locations in the North of the country.
He also makes the point that T Murlaski’s expansion plans will not include more artificial lighting because the Polish market will not pay the premium for tomatoes produced out of season, and in his opinion, Holland already produces more than enough under lights to satisfy the supply the export market.
“At this moment we don’t think about more artificial light for a Polish market because you must remember Poland is not rich like Germany and Holland and some prices are not acceptable by the clients when too much artificial light means costs are two to three times higher than Spanish tomatoes.”
Despite the enormous potential of the Russian market on the doorstep, they are not keen to exploit this.
“We don’t export too much to Russia. For us the market is too dangerous due to the political situation, and their borders. And sometimes they change company names and they don’t pay. We want to produce good quality for the Polish market and countries like Germany, Czech, Hungary and countries around Poland but mostly our target is Poland,” he says.
When it comes to the workforce at T Murlaski, Marcin admits they have the Dutch industry to thank for some of their highly-skilled workers, many of whom have spent time working in greenhouses in Holland, before returning to their native Poland.
They employ advisors from the UK and the Netherlands, but as Murlaski points out it’s not possible to rely 100% on Dutch expertise, because the Polish climate differs from Holland. Therefore, they also rely on advisors from Denmark, because of Poland’s climatic similarities to Scandinavia.
And if all this wasn’t enough to keep the Murlaski family busy, they also propagate and graft their own tomato plants, some of which are sold to other Polish growers, and something they hope to continue, even after the new build phase is completed.
“We can’t just stop selling them young plants,” he says. “We will try to make a good solution for our clients and also for ourselves.”
For more information:
Mularksi
Tel: +48 -322672171
Email:marcin@mularksi.pl
www.mularksi.pl