The prices for Polish apples have been at a level so high that several export markets have started to look elsewhere for their apples, says Mohamed Marawan, managing director of Polish apple exporter Sarafruit: "The Polish apple season over the past two months has been difficult. At the beginning, there was a shortage of available apples because they were stored in cold storage, and farmers were asking high prices. It was hard to buy apples at reasonable prices during that time. Later, when we finally managed to buy large quantities, the market did not accept the high prices that were in place, especially because a large volume was exported to Egypt."
Right now, Marawan sees that the availability of apples has improved, but the quality is not suited for export markets. "After that, the situation changed for importers. A lot of apples were already stored in countries like Egypt, which made it difficult to sell more apples to this region easily. This created a problematic situation in the market. If we fast forward to today, we see that there is more availability of apples, but these are without the proper quality. I'm not saying the quality is bad in general, but most of the apples are not suited for export due to the apples' firmness, combined with the effects of storing the apples for a long time."
© SaraFruit
According to Marawan, Egypt has also looked at alternative suppliers, such as Italy: "Egypt is importing much more apples from Italy now, as the quality and price are meeting the requirements of the Egyptian importers. Thankfully, there are currently a few available varieties in Poland that are still attractive for the Egyptian market, such as Red Delicious and Gala apples. However, the Polish Golden apples are not in demand at all, due to a combination of prices and quality."
"The current situation is that work is very slow, but with solid steps forward, as we have our agreements with supermarkets in both Poland and Egypt. We are always on the lookout for additional reliable clients, and the most important part of cooperation is the trust between parties," Marawan concludes.
For more information:
Mohamed Marawan
Sarafruit
Tel: +48 537 935 155
[email protected]
www.sarafruit.eu
