Plum Prices - Alarming Trend

The plum season in Poland, despite starting earlier than usual, is still in its early stages. The current harvest of these fruits is growing, but there is still some time before reaching the peak supply. However, the price trends observed in wholesale trade of plums are not favorable for growers and the supply side of the plum market.

For many days now, there has been noticeable downward pressure on domestic plum prices in the Polish wholesale market. We have already written about this on the pages of fresh-market.pl. This pressure is not weakening, but rather seems to be gaining strength. The presence of our domestic plums in the market is increasing, but it is a relative change - only in comparison to the earlier days and weeks of the current season.

In general, there is not a large quantity of these fruits available. Even considering the early stage of the season. Unfavorable weather conditions (both spring frosts and summer heatwaves) have taken a toll on plum orchards. Therefore, there are fewer fruits than in "normal" years. Thus, it is not the domestic plum supply that is the main factor driving down prices in wholesale. Import influx has consistently been the main contributing factor since the beginning of the season.

We have already discussed the threat posed by the import of cheap Moldovan plums. They are cheap because they are imported duty-free, even though Moldova is not part of the EU. However, this country has received preferential conditions from the EU authorities for exporting fruits to the EU market. Plum prices in Moldova are quickly decreasing, with current prices averaging 7.00 lei/kg (1.56 zł/kg or 0.36 EUR/kg) compared to 9.00 lei/kg (2.01 zł/kg or 0.47 EUR/kg) last year, as reported by east-fruit.com. Additionally, importing plums from Moldova is cheaper than from Serbia, not to mention Spain.

Currently, prices of Polish Lepotica plums have dropped in wholesale to 2.00-3.50 zł/kg (0.47-0.81 EUR/kg), a decrease of up to 21 percent just in the current week. Prices for Węgierka plums are slightly higher, ranging from 2.80-4.00 zł/kg (0.65-0.93 EUR/kg) in wholesale, representing a 3 percent decrease this week. The worrying aspect is that the pressure from Moldovan imports is likely to strengthen. How will the prices of Polish fruits react to this?