Prices of Chinese cabbage have absolutely smashed all records.

What we currently see on the Chinese cabbage market in Poland is truly unbelievable. And yet, it is happening right before our eyes – prices of "pekin" in the Polish wholesale market are reaching new records, remaining on an upward trend essentially since the last decade of June. There was only one momentary correction on this trend during this period, as seen in the chart below.

However, this described price increase quickly regained its previous momentum. As a result, Chinese cabbage prices have broken all records and are now at a higher level not only compared to previous years at this phase of the season but also higher than during the historically expensive season of 2023, towards its end when supplies were running out.

Currently, selling prices of Chinese cabbage ("ready to eat") in the wholesale market range from 5.50 to 7.00 PLN/kg, averaging 6.25 PLN/kg, which is approximately 1.28-1.63 EUR/kg, with an average of 1.45 EUR/kg. This is nearly 9 percent higher than the price record from the end of last season – at the beginning of May 2024, it was 5.75 PLN/kg (1.34 EUR/kg) in the price monitoring conducted by the fresh-market.pl editorial team.

These high prices are the result of very poor summer harvests of Chinese cabbage. The weather conditions were particularly unfavorable for the production of this vegetable during the summer months of this year. Moreover, it seems that this situation will not significantly improve in the near future.