The Polish apple season remains slow, as there is a serious shortage of good quality apples, says Mohamed Marawan, owner of Polish apple exporter Sarafruit: "The Polish apple season has not seen much change since December of last year. Availability of apples remains relatively small when it comes to good quality apples. Growers are now openening their cooling chambers, and are asking for high prices. Even if our clients accept this high price, we often resign from purchase due the quality issues. We've also had apples arrive for sorting that we had to send back to the growers, when issues appeared. It's no question; even for short transit times, the quality of the apples is a problem. This quality has been impacted by the weather changes, as I've never seen these problems on such a large scale before. It seems that storing apples in cooling chambers for this extended amount of time does not bring the economic profit that some growers were looking for."
Mohammed Marawan, visiting Fruit Logistica with his wife.
Although there are still some Golden apples with sufficient quality, the price can't really compete with those of cheaper alternatives from other European countries, Marawan emphasizes. "For one variety there is still some availability with sufficient quality, being Golden apples, but even for this variety the availability is very limited, and the price for the Polish Golden is higher than the price of other European producers. I think the market is very slow right now, due these higher prices. Again, with the current quality in mind, we lost our chance this year to sell to far markets, while we still have to compete with European producers, offering good quality apples with acceptable price offerings."
Next year, the trade of apples between Poland and Egypt will once again be in full swing, and Marawan is very excited to start things up again: "Egypt is very important market for Sarafruit and we have a very good strategy when it comes to Egypt for the next season. We are going to offer for them a very high quality apple with a very competitive price, as we always do. We'll be working with them very closely, to pick up where we left off before the issues started. We'll never feel resigned to cooperate with them and can't wait to get things going again!"
"Looking ahead, I don't expect the remainder of the season to see any apples with sufficient quality to be exported. If we do find apples with the required quality, it will be expensive for the clients, who are looking for reasonable prices," Marawan concludes.
For more information:
Mohamed Marawan
Sarafruit
Tel: +48 537935155
Email: office@sarafruit.eu
www.sarafruit.eu