Withdrawal of desert apples in Poland with redirecting them to processing?

There is still no decision on whether to withdraw dessert apples from the Polish market, even though the situation in the apple sector is very difficult. Instead, new speculation on this subject is constantly emerging. The latest concerns the possibility of redirecting withdrawn apples for processing.

The last speculation concerns the possibility of redirecting withdrawn apples to processing, by subsidising the price of dessert apples which would go to industry. Let us recall that currently the purchase prices of industrial apples exceed 0.60 PLN/kg, whereas the purchase prices of dessert apples start at 0.70-0.80 PLN/kg. So the difference is not big.

The idea is feasible because the demand for apples in the industry remains high, so there would be no question of "piling up" raw material. Apple juice concentrate prices and demand for this semi-finished product are doing well on the world market, so there would be no problem in this respect either. Processing plants would benefit because they would have more raw material, and fruit growers would benefit because they would have money for goods which they could not otherwise sell.

There is also the possibility of redirecting some of the apples withdrawn to produce biofuel. Given the high price of petrol, this also sounds sensible. Orchard owners agree on one thing - as long as the apple does not end up in free distribution, because such a withdrawal would be a disaster, as 2014 showed.

For the time being, there is no decision yet, not even on the introduction of the mechanism itself, let alone on the possible destination of the fruit obtained in this way. It is clear that this will not happen without a decision at EC level. In addition, the fruit-growing circles demand that, this time, the withdrawal mechanism should also include individual producers, since in our country the market share of groups is small. This also needs to be decided at EU level.

Some point out the dangers of a potential activation of the apple withdrawal mechanism, noting that it may "petrify" the structure and size of apple production in Poland, which must change for the industry to survive and develop.