As other Polish apple exporters are wrapping up their season, there is still no rest to be had at Appolonia. According to Jakub Krawczyk, export manager of Appolonia, there have been more sales this year, but the stocks are still sufficient: “The current apple stocks at our company are almost the same as the stocks that we had around this time of year last season. However, we did see an increase in sales and the stocks are sufficient, they are not too small, nor not too big; just stable. These stocks will help us fulfill orders until the end of the season. I don’t know stocks in other companies, so I’m not sure what are the differences between our company and others are, but because we are selling around 150,000 tons of apples every year, our stocks are always bigger than other producers, especially now that the season is coming to an end.”
As the season is coming to a close, not all the traders have sufficient apples in stock, which in turn creates opportunities for Appolonia, Krawczyk states. “Many of our growers are waiting until May or even June to open their ULO chambers, we are supplying many supermarkets chains, so we need to have product available all year round. We heard that producers in the south of Poland are very short in terms of their volumes of apples. We have some customers that are starting to order from us now, at the end of the season, because other producers don’t have any product anymore, and this happens every year. So if anyone still needs some apples, we’re able to provide them.”
As supply is getting more scarce, the price of apples is increasing, Krawczyk explains: “The price is going up all the time, varieties that are hard to buy, like Golden, are getting more expensive. More varieties are also getting very low on availability because of the season ending and many of the apples we receive we can’t accept, because they don’t fit into our customers’ quality standards. We think the price on some varieties will increase more, especially in June.”
Looking at the logistical side of things, costs aren’t as high anymore as they once were: “We observed there are many trucks available right now on the market than can take our cargo and prices for transport have dropped down little bit. I’m talking about road transportation only, because right now we’re not sending apples in containers for long distances. To some customers we will deliver apples all the time, so our season will not actually end at all when it comes to domestic supermarket chains, but our export will probably end in beginning or middle of July. Then, we will have a gap of a few weeks, before we’ll have the Gala variety available in September and will start our export season once again,” Krawczyk concludes.
For more information:
Jakub Krawczyk
Appolonia
Tel: +48 785 342 930
Email: [email protected]
www.appolonia.pl