Although the Polish apple harvest will be lower than the seasons that came before it, Aniruddh Ramesh, director of Polish apple exporter LVMG Grupa, doesn’t feel it’s a worrying drop in volumes: “When you compare the current apple season to the previous two seasons, volumes are indeed slightly lower right now. However, they’re not at a disappointingly low level, as there is a sizeable amount of apples grown in Poland. Some varieties will see lower availability, while others will have even more volumes than last season, thanks to new plantations. We will know the real figures in October and then we can determine to what extent overall production is low or not.”
Strong demand on the Polish local market is showing an impact on the apple prices. According to Ramesh, this could lead to issues when it comes to the export of apples. “Currently, the domestic demand in supermarkets seems very big at this moment. As a result, the fruit prices are also very high. We’re afraid these prices could prove difficult for the export markets, so we are keeping our export market buyers updated on this situation, but nevertheless we expect this to change and stabilise in the coming weeks, as harvesting has just begun for Royal Gala.”
India is one of LVMG’s main markets. Although demand will be strong in this market due to lower production in India, Ramesh emphasizes the market share of Polish apples has been steadily growing regardless of the Indian domestic production: “Polish apples in general are now well received in India. Each year, the demand for Polish apples increases irrespective of the lower production of domestic apples in India this year. Of course we expect this season could be higher than the last one. That being said, there are other countries as well who compete aggressively on this market, given the lower production in India this season.”
Ramesh is happy to see that apple trees planted a few years ago have come into maturity and are now apple to supply apples for export. “We anticipate a very busy season in terms of fruit procurement and as well as for the sales. Therefore, we’re preparing adequately to make sure we are able to fulfil the demand with quality procurement. We’re excited to see some of the fruits from young trees planted by our growers a year or two ago, which are now ready to produce for the export market. These plantations were implemented on the bases of our feedback and suggestions. Naturally, being able to export these specific fruits is something we are really looking forward to,” he concludes.
