Current market information, summary of the first half of the year: production, export
According to the September report published by the European Commission, apple production in the EU in the economic year 2021 amounted to approximately 11.9 million tons (which is a result 7.4% above the 5-year average).
The number of apples produced in the four leading countries in terms of production (Poland, Italy, France, Germany) in the period 2021/22 is 8.7 million tons, which is 73% of production in relation to all European Union countries. Poland produced the same number of apples as Italy, France and Germany combined.
The harvest of apples in Poland in the current economic year was initially estimated at 4.75 million tons, and now these estimates are close to 4.0 million tons. The final size of the harvest depends largely, among others, on the availability of staff for the harvest.
According to the WAPA report, the apple inventories of all EU countries as of January 1, 2022 amounted to 4.3 million tons. This is 200,000 tons more than last year. The most recent WAPA report (July 1, 2022) shows that there are currently 535,000 tons of apples in European warehouses. Italians (150,000), Poles (94,000) and French (82,000) have the largest amounts of apples in their warehouses.
In the first half of 2022, 604,000 tons of apples were exported from the European Union. This is an increase of 0.4% compared to the average for the last 5 years. Over the entire period of 2021/22, the EU exported a total of 1.114 million tons of apples. This is an increase of about 13,000 tons compared to the previous period.
EU fresh apple exports are now projected to decline by 3% year on year due to rising energy and transport costs.
The export of fresh apples from Poland in the first half of 2022 amounted to 160,000 tons, and in total throughout the period 2021/22, it was 370,000 tons.
As for the average consumption of fresh apples in the EU, it is projected to decline in the 2022/23 season to 12 kg per capita (compared to 12.2 kg in 2021/22). This is mainly due to growing inflationary pressure.
Sources:
Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development – Apples trade /
Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development – Apple dashboard;