Poland’s apple growers are threatening a strike against processors, as they are not getting satisfaction from prices in processing sector.
Apple production in Poland is lower this year than in 2004, but the country’s growers are being disappointed by a reduction in the returns they are receiving from processors of apple concentrate. Polish farmers are threatening to abandon the processing sector if concentrate producers do not increase their purchase price. Which in turn would place more pressure on the fresh market, as larger volumes would undoubtedly find their way onto the European spot market.
Poland provides 30 per cent of all the world’s apples for processing and the cost of these apples to processors has almost halved, dropping from $0.16/kg, to $0.09-0.1/kg in recent months.
Producers claim that processors are artificially decreasing prices, as world prices for apple concentrate are still high.
Competition has intensified on this market, as Chinese producers promote their cheaper apple concentrate aggressively on the EU market - even supplying the commodity to some Polish fruit juice producers.
Ukraine has also expanded its presence on the European apple concentrate market, as Ukrainian processors pay $0.05-0.09/kg for raw material to ensue the competitiveness of the final product.
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