Weather has stopped the price trend for strawberries on the Polish market

The last few days have brought waves of cold air over Poland and temperatures have been dropping below zero in places since Monday. The meteorological services report that on Tuesday night the lowest recorded temperature at ground level was -6 degrees Celsius. Strawberry plantations in the current vegetative phase are very susceptible to frost, so growers have tried to protect them from the effects of such temperature drops.

It is well known, however, that such protection is never 100% effective. Not surprisingly, the weather situation has already had an impact on prices in the wholesale and retail trade of strawberries. Even apart from the frosts, it has been colder over the last few days, which has slowed down the ripening of the fruit and affected its current supply.

As a result, the rather dynamic trend of declining prices for strawberries at wholesale has been interrupted and, yesterday, prices continued to rise throughout the day. This is also shown in our chart below, although it does not fully reflect the dynamics of the changes, as we have one quotation (morning) per day and the prices of strawberries were changing more frequently.

Currently, the prices of strawberries at the larger wholesalers are usually between PLN 12.00 and 17.00 per kilo, depending on the quality of fruit and the region of the country. This is an increase of 21 per cent, which fairly well reflects the average change in market prices, but it is worth bearing in mind that since Tuesday evening (when the minimum price in Nowy Przybojewo dropped to 9 PLN/kg), market prices have risen by as much as 30 per cent. This weekend, consumers must prepare themselves for more expensive strawberries (we are leaving aside the fact that prices at retail did not fall as quickly as at wholesale anyway).

Finally, it is worth noting that despite the described upward price rebound, strawberries are currently still cheaper at wholesale than in the same period last year. Now the average in our editorial price monitoring fresh-market.pl is 14.50 PLN/kg and a year ago it was 17.50 PLN/kg, 21 percent more.