At the beginning of this week, tightened security measures came into force at the German-Polish border to prevent the further spread of the virus. The tightening of border controls also affects trade relations between the two neighbouring countries, according to a FreshPlaza survey.
"Customers do not want to order in advance"
The current corona crisis primarily affects the Polish export industry, because every year the Polish agricultural sector exports tons of fruit and vegetables to Germany and elsewhere. The situation is having a noticeable effect on order volumes, reports a spokeswoman for a fruit processor. "Customers no longer want to order 2 to 3 weeks in advance. The catering trade -one of our most important sales markets- has also been almost paralysed. All hotels, restaurants, etc. in Austria and various German states are closed. But that is also the case here in Poland."
Meanwhile, the western Polish company is trying to keep production going as much as possible. "Orders in the food retail trade are already increasing, so production capacity is not too much affected for the time being." Also on the transport side, no major consequences of the tightened border controls are yet seen. "We deliver our goods mainly to Berlin, from there they are distributed further."
"Acute supply shortage of brown mushrooms"
On the part of the importer, the consequences of the crisis are already seriously being felt, explains a mushroom wholesaler who obtains part of his goods from Poland. "We received another delivery this week but according to the current forecast this was also the last time. It will be a pure catastrophe. The industry is completely impaired and hardly any goods are coming to us from Poland."
Acute supply bottlenecks are already noticeable in the daily trade: "We have not received any brown mushrooms from Poland today. We have received a lot of enquiries from customers, but unfortunately we were not able to serve all of them."