The exporters of Polish apples haven't seen much action recently, as prices seem to have put a restraint om the demand, says Aniruddh Ramesh, director of Polish apple exporter LVMG Grupa: "The current extremely high prices in Poland has slowed the apple export market down fully. We're finishing with our export of Royal Gala variety as the last few bins from our CA's are due for sorting, so in a week or two max we will finish entirely. The rates for the Red Delicious variety reached a very high point and turned out to be not competitive enough for India, as the buyers have alternate supplying markets at a cheaper price. As a result, we stopped packing this variety few weeks ago. After a week, we will hopefully start the export of Red Jonaprince on a bigger scale, providing the rates fit with our buyers."
As shipping companies are deciding whether to invest into the logistics of India, Ramesh feels a direct service between Europe and India would be the most beneficial for the trade. "I'm aware that a few major shipping companies have planned investments in India to boost the trade. For us, in terms of shipping, the priority is transit time. We always choose services with the fastest transit time, due to the sensitivity of our cargo. So, if we manage to secure a direct service from Europe to India, it would be a big boost for the trade."
LVMG still has sufficient stocks of apples available, but the amount of apples is definitely lower than previous years: "Apple stocks are depleting at a fast pace, due to the smaller quantity availability as well as the strong demand from the EU market. However, we do have stocks of varieties that we will sell at a later point of the season, but these are definitely in smaller quantity than they were in the previous seasons. Post-Christmas, the prices only kept going up, and at a steep pace, this factor certainly slowed the business. I'm still very optimistic that stocks we have are good for export shipping, but not sure about the demand and supply due to the prices that we're currently seeing," Ramesh concludes.
For more information:
Aniruddh Ramesh
LVMG Grupa Sp.z o.o.
Email: ceo@lvmg.pl
http://www.lvmg.pl