After a good start for the Polish apple season, exports currently seem to have calmed down recently, according to Jakub Krawczyk, export manager for Polish apple exporter Appolonia: “The apple trade slowed down a bit in the last two weeks. Orders from Europe are not too big at the moment, we see that some markets are offering lower prices than ours, and so customers are choosing their apples instead. There’s still availability for local apples in many EU countries. For the most popular export varieties, like Gala Royal and Schnico Red, Golden Delicious and Red Jonaprince, availability will be stable until the end of this year, there will be no problem to get those apples. There are some problems to procure Ligol apples, a very popular variety in Poland.”
As prices for industrial apples in Poland are still at a high level, Krawczyk doesn’t expect export prices to drop anytime soon. “Prices are still high for customers, but okay for the growers. We needed to correct our prices for some varieties with a few cents, because apples prices have increased. As industry apples are high still, we don’t think the price will drop. In some markets, customers can’t handle the current price, so we are waiting for the right time to start exporting to them.”
India emerged as a very strong market for European apple exporters, as their local harvest was lower. Krawczyk states that the country has now imported large volumes to a point where the market is flooded: “India has loaded a lot from Poland in the first weeks of the season, but now it has slowed down. What our customers are saying, is that lot of importers from India ordered apples from many countries, like Turkey, and at the moment there are too many apples on the market. They need to sell their stocks first to make way for new apple imports. Also, the price in India dropped down because of these big imported volumes they have at the moment, so many of our customers said they need to pause like two or three weeks with orders. Logistic companies are confirming to us the same information, that it’s a little low demand on containers at the moment. We hope the situation in beginning of December will change and we can start again doing programs with containers to that region.”
Another interesting market is South America, although Krawczyk feels the potential is greater than currently achieved, as there are no protocols in place. “Customers from South America made programs with us and we are loading every week for them, mostly Gala Royal. At the moment, the situation there is stable. We predict that until the end of December, we will sell there regularly. We still want to develop the South America region and continue our effort to start cooperation with companies in new countries there. There are still countries that cannot buy directly from Poland, because there are no export protocols signed between our countries. We’re seeking partners that would be interested in buying our apples there. If they liked apples from other countries in Europe, they should also love ours.”
“It’s always better in my opinion to load apples at the beginning of the season to overseas countries, because at that point the risk of any quality issues is minimum. This is also why we would like to load as many containers as possible until the end of December. We don’t know whether the current level of demand will continue, but we are hoping that the little pause in sales will end soon,” Krawczyk concludes.
For more information:
Jakub Krawczyk
Appolonia
Tel: +48 785 342 930
Email: jakub.krawczyk@appolonia.pl
www.appolonia.pl