August 31 2007, 14:06

Prices for commercial apple are increasing in Ukraine and Poland

The specialists of CIS produce business periodical, "Agrooglyad: Fruits and Vegetables" weekly inform that the price growth for commercial apple has continued in Ukraine and Poland this week.

Despite of the increased apple supply comparing to the previous year, the demand for apple to be processed into concentrate, juice and puree vividly exceeds the supply on Ukrainian market. In some regions, in the beginning of this season small producers tried to keep the prices lower than in the previous season; however the prices have been gradually equaled due to high purchase prices set by such large juice producers like "Sandora", and "Vitmark-Ukraine" (TM "Jaffa").

It is worth mentioning that apple processors of Ukraine have noticeably improved their activities on apple purchase among the population this season. A large number of the purchase units was created in the regions where no apples used to be normally purchased. As a result, some intermediaries purchased apples from the population even for $0.04-0.06/kg and resold apples to large enterprises for $0.14-0.18/kg. This week the purchase prices for commercial apples, set by processing enterprises have been fluctuating within the limits $0.14-0.2/kg, i.e. 30-40% higher than at the same period of time past year.

To the opinion of Tatyana Getman, the Chief Editor of "Agrooglyad: Fruits and Vegetables" weekly, the prices for commercial apple are increasing because of the reduction of apple supplies from the farms. At the same time, the supply of the dessert apples is gradually increasing, so that the prices for this product are going down a little.

This time the prices for commercial apple continue beating records in Poland. At the present moment the producers of apple concentrate and apple juice pay four times as much for commercial apple than they did at the same period of time in 2006. However, past week the processors managed to insignificantly decline the purchase prices, but this week the prices have jumped up again. According to the data provided by Polish producers, in most cases the processors pay $0.34-0.36/kg. There have been messages received recently about apple purchases for $0.38-0.4/kg.

You can learn the details of the situation on the market of fruit&vegetable raw materials from the leading experts of this industry during the fourth international conference "Fruits and Vegetables of Ukraine 2007. Meeting New Leader" to be held on December 4th-6th 2007 on the territory of the National Complex "Expocenter of Ukraine" in Kyiv. You can find the online registration form for the participation in the event here.