The availability of good quality apples is so low, that it's been impossible to meet the full demand, despite exporting more than the company did last year, says Aniruddh Ramesh, director of Polish apple exporter LVMG Grupa: "Due to the shortage in supply for export quality apples, we couldn't meet the demand what we received from our regular customers, let alone the new enquires. Despite that, we have done more volumes than we did in 2023 during the same period. We managed to source and close more apples in our CA's during harvest time, which helped us achieve this increased number of exports."
Looking at specific varieties, Royal Gala apples are performing the best out of LVMG's offering, Ramesh explains. "The demand for varieties like Royal Gala and Red Delicious is good at the moment, we have also started shipping slowly Red Jonaprince varieties as well, to keep the volumes going forward. We can confidently say that we have better quality of Royal Gala apples available compared to competing markets in Europe, like Italy and France, but with Red Delicious, we aren't very strong compared to competitors such as Turkey and Italy."
According to Ramesh, the costs of production have increased to a point that he has no choice but to incorporate these costs in the final price for the apples"The logistic side of things has been quite stable for a while, so that's a relief. However, production costs have been high this season, along with the shortages in volumes. As a result, we pay higher costs and our customers also will see the prices for their apples increase. That's one challenge, but another will be to keep our volumes flowing in a stable manner, while also ensuring that we have quality fruit available for the entire season, to fulfill our customer's demands and needs."
Next to apples, LVMG is looking at expanding the product offering for Asian markets. "New markets for fresh blueberries have opened up towards India and Vietnam, this will be very interesting to add to our offering. Many customers have already shown good interest in marketing our products there, we look forward to that a lot. Depending on the harvest next season, if we have more available apples, we would be happy to enter new markets. There are talks of new markets in Latin America to be opened up soon. But we will wait and see, while we are focused on completing this season successfully and keep doing our best," Ramesh concludes.
For more information:
Aniruddh Ramesh
LVMG Grupa Sp.z o.o.
Email: [email protected]
http://www.lvmg.pl