The start of the new Polish apple season is still a while off, but so far the new harvest is looking quite alright, says Jakub Krawczyk, export manager for Polish apple exporter Appolonia: “For now, we can say ‘so far, so good’ for the Polish apples. There weren’t any large or long terms problems with the weather and we think that the crop should be quite all right. Although we think there could be a little less volumes of Red Jonaprince and Idared and mostly sizes could be bigger on those two varieties. However we grow these varieties in large quantities, so even some shortages of them should not be that painful. For the other varieties we still need to wait a bit to say anything for sure.”
According to Krawczyk, the programs are already being put in place, which is where most of the current demand comes from. “Demand is coming mostly from customers we worked with in the past, and are willing to continue programs. These clients are from countries in Europe, India, Vietnam and South America. Most of the customers want to expand their programs, because they had success with our apples last season, which means they predict they can easily sell more apples in the coming season.”
Krawczyk is already looking forward to the next exhibition in Madrid, as this is his favorite trade show: “We will go to Fruit Attraction in 2023, in our opinion it’s a fantastic exhibition and so we’re always there. The reason we think it’s the best is because first of all, it’s in October, just when we start our season. It’s the perfect time to meet with customers and plan their apple program for the entire season. Second, it’s during our harvest, so we already have almost all information on our volumes and quality. Third is localization, Madrid is a perfect place to meet with customers all around the world. In our opinion, it’s the number one exhibition in Europe for fruits. I want to also add that the Polish Embassy in Madrid is doing a great job every year, to promote our Polish products with such professional support, it makes it easier to find and continue working with customers. We’ll also be in Hong Kong on Fruit Logistica Asia from 6 to 8 September, so if anyone would like to visit us they are more than welcome.”
Looking back at the previous season, Krawczyk is happy to state they’ve managed to sell most of their apples that they had. For one variety, the season is still going. “Last season there were large quantities of Red Jonaprince, but we have sold almost all that we had in stock. There still is some still left, but it’s mostly for running programs and supermarkets. We also had very good quantities of Gala, which I hope we will continue in the coming season. As always there were also solid volumes of Idared, which we still sell at the moment. There wasn’t so much of Golden, specially a good quality Golden which was a big surprise for us in the second half of the season.”
Not all is perfect in the Polish apple harvest, as there are some crusts on the apples, Krawczyk explains: “We’ve observed some scabs on certain apples, we will need to see after harvesting which varieties it’ll affect and how big the problem is. However, there’s some percentage of apples on the trees right now that have it and it’s something that we need to handle. We’re not completely out of the woods in terms of weather either, as we could still get some hail before harvest. There were already some storms in Poland and in August it’s always more likely that storms show up. Lot of plantations don’t have net protections, so we need to wait to see what the weather will bring us.”
“We would need to be sure that we will have enough workers on the fields during the harvest. Last year showed that a lack of workers can spoil quality of apples if they are not picked at the right time. So for now, we’re concentrating mostly on the quality. We would like to thank all the customers that trusted our product in the last seasons and we would like to continue with all the programs that we are planning ahead in the next season with them,” Krawczyk concludes.
Appolonia will be exhibiting during Asia Fruit Logistica in Hong Kong. You can find their stand in hall 5, stand 5Q35.
For more information:
Jakub Krawczyk
Appolonia
Tel: +48 785 342 930
Email: [email protected]
www.appolonia.pl