As stocks of Polish apples mount up, domestic prices have dropped significantly and a lack of alternative markets means the sector's crisis is deepening.

There are two main issues at the core of Poland’s apple industry woes, according to Appolonia general director Karolina Zaluska, who tells www.freshfruitportal.com how tough it is for producer organizations to make any significant headway.

One is several alternative markets have been negotiated since the Russian embargo, but many of them are not so keen on the main variety produced in Poland - the Idared - and therefore stocks are escalating.

The second is Poland’s domestic market has been virtually destroyed because of a European Commission withdrawal scheme allowing consumers to get apples for free, she claims.

"The situation remains quite difficult as the Russian market is closed for us and unfortunately we cannot sell out products there," Zaluska says.

"The official data shows that generally exports from Poland are not so high as they used to be. We have tried to sell our apples to other destinations and other markets, but unfortunately we have such species of apples which consumers in other markets are not very keen on."

The Idared variety is characterized by a non-uniform skin color and this, according to Zaluska, can be a sticking point with consumers who generally purchase attractive uniform apples.

"We have the Idared but the Far East and other markets prefer the one color, usually red, so even though our apples are of good quality and are very tasty, the consumer is buying by eye so ours are not preferable in certain markets.

"We have generally opened alternative markets, but we do not sell high amounts of apples and we still have quite a lot of apples in stock.

"The European Commission has given us permission to withdraw our products from our domestic market and for apples to go to charities, but this scheme has actually devastated our own domestic market because then consumers do not buy apples anymore."

Appolonia represents five producer organizations and as an association has around a 10% share in the Polish market.

According to the latest statistics from the World Apple and Pear Association (WAPA) there were 220,000 metric tons (MT) of Idared left in storage in March 2016, compared with 190,000MT in the same period in 2014.

"When Polish families get this type of product for free, our apples, they of course do not buy the fruit.

"We are keen for the Polish government to communicate this with the Commission because we think it’s not a good scheme and it’s not helping the producers.

"I hope the Commission will do something and change the withdrawal scheme because it’s not working and also destroyed our domestic market. This is the main disappointment in this whole situation."

Continue to push Polish apples around the world

Seeing as Russia was such a huge market for Polish apples and consumers liked the Idared variety, Zaluska knows it will be difficult to find other countries to match the export volumes previously supplied to the Russian Federation.

"Of course we are not giving up on the point of finding alternative markets and we are trying to sell in new destinations all of the time.

"For instance, we are selling in Vietnam, Oman and north and central Africa but this will not solve the problem."

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