According to analysts at EastFruit, world prices for apple juice concentrate continue to rise, encouraging processors to increase purchasing prices for industrial apples. This in turn leads to a greater shortage of low and medium quality apples in the markets in Eastern Europe. It should be noted that in this region the low price segments still dominate.
“In our opinion, the global apple juice concentrate market is still far from overheating and saturation. Such a rapid price increase could lead to suppliers of juices and juice-containing drinks looking for a partial replacement for apple juice concentrate in their recipes as early as 2024. This years, such a replacement will be extremely difficult to implement because there are simply no cheap mass-produced products. Orange concentrate is now also at an all-time high price due to the sharp decline in global orange production,” said Andriy Yarmak, economist at the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Investment Center of the United Nations (FAO).
A little earlier, a steady increase in prices for industrial apples and apple concentrate was estimated in the publication “Reincarnation of apple concentrate or “long live the Class II apple”. However, now the growth rate is slightly higher than market participants’ expectations.
It is interesting to note that in Poland prices for industrial apples have already exceeded the psychological threshold of € 0.18 per kg. At the same time, wholesale prices for fresh market apples of non-export varieties are only twice as expensive. Usually the price ratio between industrial apples and apples for the fresh market is between 1 to 5 and 1 to 10.
At the same time, prices for industrial apples are significantly lower in Ukraine and higher in Austria and Germany than in Poland. As a result, Ukraine now exports not only high-quality apples for the fresh market, but also quite large quantities of industrial apples. Most apples for processing from Ukraine go to the Austrian market.
In Ukraine, suppliers can get up to €0.16-0.14 per kg, provided there is a large quantity of 100 tons or more. For smaller quantities, the prices offered by buyers are considerably lower. Moreover, the price ratio between industrial apples and apples for the fresh market in Ukraine is currently also identical to that on the Polish market.
If the situation on the apple juice concentrate market continues to warm up, this could accelerate the rise in apple prices on the fresh market, especially after the onset of frost in Ukraine and Poland. As a rule, this coincides with the end of sales of apples that are not stored for a longer period of time, which reduces the supply in the lower price segment of the apple market.
For more information: east-fruit.com
Tags: Prices industrial apples rising rapidly causing shortage fresh market
