Poland: fresh produce situation (apples from conventional storage almost sold out)

According to Polish growers, current season is very bad for fruits and vegetable storing. At the beginning of February, apples from conventional storage facilities in Poland were almost sold out, and growers have started offering apples from cold storage facilities. Even some owners of CA storage already decided to open their facilities, though they used to start selling apples much later during past seasons.

The main reasons are exceptionally good apple prices, specially for varieties as ‘Golden Delicious’, ‘Jonagold’, ‘Ligol’ or ‘Rubin’. In spite of the Russian ban on Polish fresh produce, most of the foreign buyers are Russian. They deliver Polish products through Lithuania and Ukraine, which is completely legal. Apple trade in Polish wholesale markets is also pretty good, despite snowy conditions during the last days.

At the same time, there are almost no deliveries of processing apples, because processing plants have bought enough products already and growers prefer to sell lower quality apples as table fruits, because of the good market demand. In the middle of this week, processing plants in Poland paid: 0,08-0,11 €/kg for carrots, 0,34-0,38 €/kg for peeled onions, 0,21-0,22 €/kg for unpeeled onions, 0,06 €/kg for beet roots and 0,10-13 €/kg for processing apples.

Some prices from wholesale markets: white cabbage 0,05-0,12 €/kg, onion 0,21-0,51 €/kg, root parsley 0,36-0,51 €/kg, leek 0,38-0,74 €/kg, celeriac 0,25-0,46 €/kg. Fruit prices from Warsaw wholesale market on Februari 1: ‘Golden Delicious’ apples 0,43 €/kg, ‘Jonagold’ and ‘Gala’ apples 0,34 €/kg, ‘Ligol’ apples 0,43 €/kg, ‘Conference’ pears 1,03 €/kg. ‘Lucas’ pears 0,77 €/kg.

^^^ 0,43 €/kg was the average price of Polish ‘Golden Delicious’ apples in Warsaw wholesale market on 1 February 2007

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