It is still a tense situation in the top fruit market. Pears are doing well, but apples experience 'problems' from the Polish production, which is very high this year. This according to a Belgian trader. "Reasonable volumes of pears have been arriving since November and prices have been stable for a while. On average they are round 80 cents. Those are growers' prices for the average sizes. The larger sizes are just below one Euro (growers' price). Up to now it has gone well with pears, but we will have to wait and see what will happen. The larger volumes and higher prices have been with us for some time already. The export to Russia is good and the demand in Europe is excellent."
"With apples it is not as good. The larger sizes are doing reasonably well, but the smaller sizes are not. From November prices dropped and have not recovered. This is mainly because of the situation in Poland. The large supply from this country is very disturbing. On average prices are about 40 cents and for the bigger sizes 50 cents. It is difficult to say whether these will decrease further. It is already low at the moment. It remains exciting in the apple and pear trade."