Price of apples in 2019/2020 season
Apple sales in the 2020/2021 season were very unnatural, back in January and February it seemed that although covid was affecting countries in the Far East, including China to which Poles were exporting more and more fruit and vegetables, it was not having a major impact on the price of fruit and vegetables from Poland. It was only when March 2020 came and with it Covid and the first people infected, resulting in the shutdown of European economies, including a total lockdown in Poland, that panic began among fruit growers and producer groups as no one knew what would happen next.
As a result of this panic, in March and April 2020, Polish fruit growers started to open storage chambers en masse and sell their apples. As a result, by June 2020 the price had already skyrocketed, and Polish fruit growers were selling apples to foreign wholesalers and supermarkets for 4 PLN per kilo.
Season 2020/2021 for polish fruit growers
The current season has seen a very unhealthy situation arise in the market. In January and February 2021, apples were sold at similar prices and in similar quantities as in 2020, and it seemed that everything was fine. However, since March Polish growers have not opened their warehouses and many of them have stopped selling apples altogether, counting on very high prices in the later months as was the case last year. Instead of rising, the price started to fall, until at the beginning of May the price started to fall below 1 PLN per kilo and then something broke in the Polish fruit growers. Everyone started selling off their apples en masse, which drove the price down to 0.7 PLN per kilo.
Lack of apples in Poland
The result of this unhealthy situation is that foreign buyers have bought up apples and are not interested in further deliveries, or have significantly reduced them. The price has fallen below the cost of producing high quality dessert apples. The consequence of all this is that in June and July there will be a shortage of apples for export, because Polish growers are left with leftovers.