Cauliflowers didn't have a chance to become cheaper.

The drop in wholesale cauliflower prices that we observed in the Polish market at the end of July turned out to be an exceptionally weak and short-lived trend. The beginning of August brought a clear reversal. Cauliflowers had no chance to become cheaper. On the contrary, they became more expensive, even more so than in the same period last year, when they were already at record high prices. Now that record has been broken.

Why didn't the downward trend from the end of last month have a chance to develop? It's no surprise to say that the weather was to blame. This year, it hasn't been kind to vegetable producers, especially delicate ones like cauliflower, whose growth is very sensitive to agrometeorological conditions. This season, July already put a strain on cauliflower crops, and the beginning of August only made things worse. As a result, there has been a significant drop in the current harvest of these vegetables, creating a clear supply gap in the fresh market (the situation in processing plants is, as usual, a separate issue).

Of course, it's not that the conditions for cauliflower cultivation significantly deteriorated at the beginning of August. It's just a continuation and accumulation of the weather problems that farmers have been experiencing since the beginning of the season. Additionally, there was a decrease in the cultivation area after a very poor year for the industrial cauliflower segment.

source: own elaboration based on GUS data

As a consequence, there has been a significant decrease in cauliflower production in Poland, as shown in our first chart. The cauliflower harvest in 2024 is estimated at only 111 thousand tons, which is nearly 13 percent less than in the weak year of 2023. Where are the volumes approaching 250 thousand tons, as we had in Poland ten years ago?

In this context, it's not surprising that there haven't been significant drops in wholesale cauliflower prices in the fresh market. The supply shortage is significant and clearly visible, for example in the number of advertisements expressing interest in buying these vegetables.

The mentioned price drop at the end of July was barely noticeable, and during this minor dip, cauliflower sales prices were in the range of 4.00-5.00 PLN per piece, which is approximately 0.93-1.16 EUR per piece. The chart shows that they did not drop below the record prices from the previous year.

However, in August, there was an average increase of nearly 28%! And currently, as we can also see on the chart, these prices are absolutely the highest compared to the previous five years, and according to our editorial price monitoring at fresh-market.pl, they are the highest since at least 2010.