It’s been an okay season for the Polish apples according to Mateusz Wajnert, head of sales for Polish apple exporter Galster: “Looking at the Polish apple season in general, it’s easy to sum up in a single sentence; There are no reasons to complain, while it’s also no season to brag about. We were able to do good business during the autumn. We started shipping right after picking the apples from the trees. Demand in many markets was very good during this time, lots of buyers were waiting for the harvest to start in Poland, so they could receive their first shipments.”
Although sales did slow down last month, Wajnert states that the trade has since picked up again: “I’ve noticed that the past few seasons sales do slow down around mid-December up until the first week of January. However, the last few weeks there has been good demand, but we experienced issues in regards to the Suez canal. The good news is that just like in the previous seasons, trade has picked up at full speed again since the 10th of January.”
As Galster has found a new market that has a lot of tourist traffic, Wajnert loves the idea that people from all over the world are now tasting their apples: “Our export is done to the same countries we always export to, but we did find a few new markets as well. For instance, we ship our apples to the Canary Islands and it’s nice to think that tourists from all over the world are eating Galster apples there. Looking at the undisputed queen of varieties, it’s Gala Royal. It’s hard to say if other varieties are selling worse than expected this season. Most of the varieties are getting the same interest, such as Golden, Red Chief or Red Jonaprince.”
Dealing with the situation surrounding the Red Sea is one of Galster’s main challenges for now, Wajnert explains. “Currently, our biggest challenges are with logistics to our long shipments customers. We need to select a batch of apples carefully to sleep calmly as the transit time to some of them is even two times longer than when we would send the shipments via the Suez canal.”
Although prices are higher than they were last year, it isn’t all good, as some of the varieties have not seen a prince increase since the harvest started: “At this time we achieve slightly better prices than we did the same time last season. Industry apples are valued much better than last season. For us, the bad news is that some of the varieties have not seen any price increase from the point they were harvested. This means we can’t earn back the energy costs we’ve had to pay for storing these apples for so long,” Wajnert concludes.
For more information:
Mateusz Wajnert
Galster Sp. z o.o.
Tel: +48 660 042 551
Email: [email protected]
www.galster.pl