Raspberries - we can see the impact of higher supply on prices, but...

Exactly a year ago, we wrote on the pages of the fresh-market.pl portal about the difficult situation of raspberry producers, citing their opinions on the matter. In these opinions, words like "disaster" and "catastrophic" were often repeated, both in relation to demand realities and especially to raspberry prices. This is true for dessert fruit prices, although it should be noted that the dessert fruit market is only a fraction of the raspberry market in Poland.

The situation in the current season is better than a year ago. Especially from the second week of July, when the average selling price of dessert raspberries exceeded the average from the previous five years. This was possible because the weather significantly negatively affected this year's raspberry harvest. As a result, there was a quick halt to the downward trend in prices of these fruits in the wholesale market, and it occurred at a relatively high level of 16.50 PLN/kg (3.85 EUR/kg).

As seen on our chart, raspberry prices in the wholesale market rose in the first two decades of July, and for a while, the current average even exceeded all five previous listings (the listing from July 22 - 24.00 PLN/kg (5.60 EUR/kg)). But then the first autumn raspberries started to appear on the market. Now the supply of these fruits is increasing, and in addition, we have raspberries from tunnel cultivation on the market. Although the prices of the latter are significantly higher and contribute to pushing the average value up, this average still dropped compared to the earlier peak in July.

Currently, the selling prices of dessert raspberries in the wholesale market range from 15.00 to 30.00 PLN/kg (3.50-7.00 EUR/kg). There is a large disparity, but this is due to the fact that we have both autumn raspberries (cheaper) and tunnel raspberries (more expensive) in the offers. The latter can reach up to 40.00 PLN/kg (9.34 EUR/kg) in small quantities. The current average is 11 percent above the long-term average. While this may not be a significant increase, it still represents a considerable improvement compared to the market situation in the first part of the season. Furthermore, producers do not expect a further significant drop in prices because raspberries are still scarce, and the situation is not expected to improve significantly.