For apple producer and exporter Appolonia, work was started around 3 years ago, building upcontacts in China, so that apples could be sent from Poland to China.
Appolonia Vice-Presidents, Pawel Puncewicz (left) and Przemyslaw Bladek (right).
“We hope tohave an agreement by September 2016, sowe can start sending our apples to China. In the meantime we have already beensending apples to Vietnam. Visitors from that country visited around the sametime as China, and opened up the market almost directly after the visit. Thefirst shipment of six containers were sent on the first of December and thereare currently 8 containers on the way. Once the market opens for China, the company has acontract for 82,000 tonnes with a client who is based in Guangzhou in Sichuan." said Przemyslaw Bladek, Vice-President of Appolonia.
Appolonia's customer, located in Sichuan, currently imports brand apples from NZ, Chile,Thailand, and Appolonia is working to become known as a new brand of its own, instead of being just known as Polish apples. The Chinese market likes sweet, hard andjuicy apples and Bladek says that the Gala fits nicely into this profile.
"Poland has bi-colouredapples and these varieties are not the best for the Asian market where theyprefer their apples to be all one colour. They are willing to accept 60-70%colouration. The best apple for the Chinese market is the Gala where you get both the correct colouration and sweetness, but Red Jonaprince and Jonagold Red will also fit nicely."
There are also differences in preferences amongst the Asian markets as well. For example, Ida Red ticks the box for a full red apple, but the variety tends to be too sour for the Chinese market. The Ligol variety is also sentto Vietnam, the apple is more green than red, but the flavour makes up for the lack of red.
“We startedspeaking to our growers two years ago, telling them that we needed to changeour production. This season and last season we started growing new varieties tosuit the new markets and the demand for the full red colour.”
When asked about concerns for Russian interference with the train transport, which crosses Russia in its journey from Lodz to Qingdao, Bladek said, “The train goes through Russia, which has the potential to cause someissues, but we have spoken to our Chinese clients and the Chinese governmentand have been assured that if a trade agreement is reached, they will talk toRussia and that we shouldn’t worry about it.”
The trainis only meant for transit and the shipments are sealed once the doors are locked, whichensures that it can not be tampered with. The containers will only be opened once they arrive at the end destination. Transport via the train only takes 14 days (2 weeks) to get to its destination, which is a huge advantage for fresh fruit and cuts down significantly on transport times in comparison with the ship which takes between 40-45 days. However, the train is 3 times more expensive than transport by sea, so Bladek said that China is the only destination at this point to make that cost worthwhile.
“The market and the culture is very different,so we need to be very careful and make sure that we do not make any mistakes.It is extra important to build good relations to learn more about the market andgrow the business through word of mouth and recommendations,” concludes Bladek.
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or more information:
Przemyslaw Bladek
Appolonia
Tel: +48 605 330 433
Email: [email protected]
www.appolonia.pl