The president of the Association of Polish Fruit Growers, Miroslaw Maliszewski, stated that Polish strawberries this year have conquered the Russian market, displacing other producers. Russia is also the main importer of Polish apples; however, due to the uncertain political situation in the East, Polish producers are looking for new markets. In about 2 to 3 years, they want to have a stronger position in China, India and the Arab countries.
This year, Polish strawberries have been a real hit on the Russian market, where it sold record volumes.
Miroslaw Maliszewski affirms that "we have a large global market share in both the fresh and processed raspberry and currant markets. We are the world's largest exporter for these fruits, and we are also starting to reach a dominant position on the blueberry market."
According to the Polish Agricultural Market Agency, the upward trend in Poland's agri-food turnover continued in the first quarter of 2014. During this time, the export value of the goods exceeded 5 billion Euro and was about 7% higher than in the same period of 2013.
Growth in the segment of products of plant origin, however, slowed down by 1.7%, mainly as a result of the 10.5% drop in the value of the country's fruit and nut shipments, reduced by 290 million Euro, which is mainly the result of the decline in the export of apples to Russia.
Last year, apples remained Poland's most exported fruit, which shipments reaching 1.2 million tonnes. The main customer is Russia, which last year purchased nearly 700,000 tonnes with a value of € 256 million (56% of the total exports).
In any case, however, due to the current Ukrainian-Russian conflict the overall exports of goods and services to Russia have dropped by more than 8% compared with the previous year. The Ministry of Economy reported that fresh apple and pear exports in the first quarter dropped by around 30%.
This situation is leading Polish fruit producers to look for new markets. "We will soon promote our soft fruit in Western Europe, North and South America, but we are thinking of entering some more exotic markets. In particular, we are very interested in China," says Maliszewski.
Maliszewski points out that "we are also thinking about other exotic markets, for example India, the Arab countries and North Africa."
Maliszewski affirms that the biggest markets for Polish fruit will still be the domestic market, as well as Eastern and Western Europe, as "I believe we still need about 2-3 years to successfully enter other more distant, exotic markets," concludes Mirosław Maliszewski.
