Despite it not being a spectacular apple season, there is more than enough reason to be satisfied with the result, says Mateusz Wajnert, head of sales for Polish apple exporter Galster: "We are quite happy with our long term cooperations with our old customers, based on mutual respect, understanding and sympathy. Maybe we don't have spectacular successes this Polish apple season, but after thinking about it for a while, I would probably blindly take this result if you had asked me just before the season started."
Although Galster is in the final stretch of the apple season, the sights are also on what's coming next. Wajnert states sweet cherries are next on the agenda. "Our apple stocks are moderately filled. We're planning to finish with our apple season before we start with the sweet cherries season in our company. We have about a dozen of hectares of sweet cherries and taking care of the fruit requires all of our attention. For sure, we'll sell our apples very close to the start of sweet cherries, maybe we'll have to stop a week or two before then. Demand for apples is still going well, in the previous week I could see growing demand for the Red Jonaprince variety."
Apple prices are higher than they were the years before, but Wajnert emphasizes that the costs of storage are still not completely covered by the current apple prices: "I have mixed feelings about the current apple prices. Maybe they're not bad, but to be honest we were hoping for a bigger return to cover for the fruit storage costs up to this point. Taking into account energy costs, the difference of apple prices between autumn and spring is actually too low."
"This apple season is now smooth sailing up until the end. We are waiting for sweet cherries season, and internally we have already started discussing the next apple season. As a company, we want to grow. If we do a good job, our clients will be satisfied and express their willingness to develop our business relationship further. One of the ways of achieving that goal is to acquire new growers as partners, and as such we will need to focus on that part of the process in the next months," Wajnert concludes.
For more information:
Mateusz Wajnert
Galster Sp. z o.o.
Tel: +48 660 042 551
Email: [email protected]
www.galster.pl