The total volume of apples this year is much bigger than average. It is estimated to be approx. 3,000 tons, an increase of 15% on last year. "This is because last year there were no apples in some parts of Poland, and this year the weather conditions were favourable to the Polish crop, giving good flowering, growing and colouration of the apples and harvesting," Jan Nowakowski from Genesis Fresh explains. "It is also due to more area planted, which is natural for expanding the business for growing Polish market."
As lower volumes of apples have been marked in Western part of Europe this year, the demand of those markets for Polish apples has been growing accordingly. "At present, all EU markets are interested in purchasing Polish apples. All in all, it is a good time for marketing Polish apples into those countries. Genesis Fresh is a distributor and marketing organization providing all varieties of Polish apples for clients in European Union," says Jan.
The Russian market is still considered to be the major buyer, purchasing 60% of the Polish volume. Due to closeness to this market and the lower price level for Polish apples they beat the competition from Dutch or Belgium suppliers. This year it may be even more noticeable than other years.
Throughout the last couple of years, huge investments were made in storage and coldstores in Poland. Jan says that despite talk of a shortage of storage space there are enough storage rooms to keep all the apples even with the big harvest.
Genesis Fresh notices more sales of apples into the UK this year. Varieties like Gala or Elstar are most commonly shipped to this market. Also other varieties like Champion, Gloster, Jonagored, Idared find buyers there.
