In the Polish company Appolonia, the apple harvest was finished before the onset of cold weather. According to export manager Jakub Krawczyk, not all Polish producers were lucky: “We finished harvesting apples, but, unfortunately, the harvest was not successful for everyone. There were not enough workers, so the harvesting was very slow. Most of our growers managed to finish it on time, but you might have noticed that there were apples on the trees in mid-November when the temperature dropped below zero. This means that not all producers harvested everything on time.”
Sales of Gala Royal apples have been so large that they have driven prices up for the variety, Krawczyk explains: “We have received a lot of orders since the start of the season, especially for 18 kg bushels. Most of our customers agree that the quality of Gala Royal this year is very good, and they can order more apples from Poland. This is the most popular variety that buyers choose to supply. Since there was a lot of demand for this variety, the price went up. We did sell a lot of Gala apples, but we still have large volumes in refrigerators to keep orders going until the end of the season.”
To Krawczyk’s surprise, Polish apples got great opportunities in the South American market in 2022. According to the specialist, several South American customers from countries such as Colombia and Panama tried Polish apples and are buying them weekly. These are still relatively new markets for Appolonia, but the company believes that there is great potential for growth in these regions. “Once we have more customers in South America, more producers will get the necessary certifications, which means it will be easier for them to sell there in the future. This is a big surprise for us – to be honest, we have not made large deliveries to this region before. We are also pleased that we have started deliveries to customers in Vietnam again, because Polish apples are well known there, and our characteristics correspond to their needs,” Jakub Krawczyk explains.
Read also: A year of losses and hopes – 2022 for the horticulture business of Ukraine
With its new packaging facility, Appolonia can handle even more orders, which is why they hope to attract even more potential customers in 2023: “Our new packaging facility is now operating at full capacity, we can process more complex orders and send them faster.”
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