It's been a tough couple of years for the mushroom industry, with one major challenge following up on the other, says Tomasz Stańko, COO of Polish mushroom exporter Arctic Sp. z o.o: "For the last three years, the mushroom business has been very hard. At beginning of Covid, the orders from supermarkets were really good, but the Horeca business had totally stopped. This resulted in some oversupply at the time. But seeing some more interest from supermarkets, some of the producers have changed their production to first class products and focus more on retailers. After covid, the war in Ukraine started, which caused increases on all production costs. Electricity, interest rates, packaging (both paper and plastic), labor costs, and so on. Moreover, the minimum salary in Poland went up by almost 40 per cent in two years. Now the production and costs seem to be on the stable level, as we've not seen any big changes in the last few months."
Overall, the mushroom trade has been pretty stable lately according to Stańko. "For us, demand stayed at a very similar level during the last months. Of course, we see some ups and downs during the season, especially from the countries we export to, caused by winter holidays and such. As of now, our main export markets are Sweden and Norway. We're working hard to get in touch with more customers from the UK and Denmark. Knowing their quality requirements and our hard work for improvements, we are sure we can supply the most demanding customers in these two territories."
An issue with the global economic challenges is the fact that consumers will most likely cut mushrooms from their grocery list, so Arctic's focus has shifted a bit, Stańko explains: "There are ongoing cost increases not only for business, but for consumers as well. This means these consumers are spending less money on things they don't absolutely require. When spending money on groceries, the mushrooms are not the first choice. Only the good quality mushrooms, with a proper shelf-life, can keep us alive. Although mushrooms are not the first option. I do hope Europe and the entire world is now used to the current global situation. We have started the 'New Normal era'. The situation we had three years ago is gone, we have to forget about this and look forward."
According to Stańko, prices are pretty similar across all origins, meaning they have to rely on their advanced knowledge to get ahead of the competition. "Since production costs for cultivating mushrooms in Europe have become very similar everywhere, the final price is also very similar from all these origins. The advantage of Polish mushroom production is the fact we are very advanced in new technologies, efficiency and knowledge. This has given us the opportunity to compete with other countries."
For more information:
Tomasz Stańko
Arctic Sp. z o.o
Tel: (+48) 783 646 792
Email: t.stanko@arcticproduce.pl
https://arcticproduce.pl