Poland's shipments of apple juice concentrate into the European Union have fallen 44 per cent since 2022, and Chinese concentrate has taken most of the ground it gave up, leaving the bloc's largest supplier weaker as its growers head into their second sharply reduced crop in three seasons.

Polish volume under the customs line for apple juice with a Brix value above 20 — the concentrate trade — fell from 179,000 tonnes in 2022 to 99,600 tonnes in 2025, cutting Poland's share of EU import volume from 34.2 per cent to 23.0 per cent, according to Eurostat figures accessed via Cropli. China went from 7,100 tonnes to 66,100 tonnes over the same four years and is now the bloc's second-largest supplier on 15.3 per cent. The series counts shipments between member states alongside those arriving from outside the EU.

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Poland's euro receipts barely moved while that volume halved: €205.0mn in 2025 against €214.1mn in 2022. The average EU import price rose from €1.20 a kilo to €1.95 over the same period, so the entire volume loss was absorbed by price.

Poland's Central Statistical Office put this year's apple crop at about 3.1mn tonnes on 3 August, down 19.5 per cent, in its first preliminary estimate of the season. GUS named late-April frost damage to blossom and young fruitlets as the largest single cause, followed by insufficient May rainfall and heatwaves at the end of June that caused thermal stress and heavier-than-usual fruitlet drop.

Both weather stages appear in Cropli's six monitoring points across the Grójec and Sandomierz orchard belts. May rainfall at Belsk Duży was the ninth lowest for the month since 1940 and at Grójec the tenth, although Warka, 30km east, was normal. Temperatures then held above 32°C for six consecutive days from 26 June to 1 July and peaked at 38.2°C at Grójec on 28 June, the highest reading of the season and squarely at fruitlet sizing.

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Trellised apple trees in an intensive Polish orchard, branches carrying red and green apples above a mown grass alley

Poland accounts for 31 per cent of EU apple production, and the rest of northern Europe has failed alongside it this year. Belgian exporter Bel'Export expects “about half of a normal crop” after orchards were hit by hail as many as five times, its Tony Derwael told FreshPlaza in July. The Dutch forecast published by GroentenFruit Huis and the NFO growers' organisation is 195mn kg, down 18 per cent, while Greek lowland orchards are down about 30 per cent on poor fruit set. Catalonia, up 9 per cent, is the only clear riser.

The World Apple and Pear Association presented its 2026/27 EU apple forecast on Thursday morning in Constance, Germany, at the 50th Prognosfruit, the conference at which the European industry aligns on expected supply for the season. Its figures had not been published at the time of writing.

China's move into Europe is at the expense of other markets. Chinese concentrate exports totalled about 383,240 tonnes in 2025, down 28 per cent from about 534,866 tonnes a year earlier, according to the annual report of Yantai North Andre Juice, one of the two companies that dominate the Chinese industry. US orders “stalled” after tariffs of 55 per cent, later cut to 45 per cent, an executive at a major Chinese exporter told Cropli at the Anuga trade fair in October 2025. America has historically been China's largest concentrate market.

Poland's largest processor is itself Chinese-owned. SDIC Zhonglu Fruit Juice, a state-controlled company listed in Shanghai, bought Appol Group in December 2018 in its first manufacturing investment outside China. Appol runs three plants in the main growing areas and accounts for roughly 70 per cent of Polish concentrated juice output.

Mirosław Maliszewski, president of the Związek Sadowników RP growers' association, put this year's crop at no more than 2.5mn tonnes in May, against what he described as a production potential of 5mn. “If there is no cheap offer, other suppliers may take over the market,” he told Kobieta w sadzie on 21 May.

Poland's share has recovered this year on last season's fruit, to 28.0 per cent of EU import volume in January to May against 20.7 per cent in the same months of 2025. That window closes before the 2026 crop reaches processors, and prices across it were softer rather than firmer: the average EU import price was €1.77 a kilo, down from €2.05.

Processing apples are cheaper than in either of the past two years despite the smaller crop. Growers in the Grójec basin were being paid 0.60 to 0.63 zloty a kilo for hand-thinned fruit in mid-July, against about 0.65 zloty in 2025 and 0.75 zloty in 2024, according to the trade publication Sad24. Red Jonaprince is largely absent from supply after poor fruit set, and processing plants have been “decidedly focused on cherries”.

Rain over the 30 days to 5 August ran at 33 per cent of the 1991–2020 norm at Sandomierz and 69 per cent at Błędów, and Cropli's crop-stress model forecasts all six Polish points into drought alert between 7 and 21 August, Belsk Duży reaching its extreme threshold. ECMWF's seasonal model puts August 2.2°C above climatology at Grójec and 2.8°C at Sandomierz, and dry at both. IMGW, the Polish meteorological service, had 61 hydrological drought warnings covering about half the country in July and issued its highest-level heat warning over both apple belts on 1 August.

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