Insight Focus
- Apple’s versatility makes it one of the most relevant fruits in the market.
- Why to know your final product is relevant to know where to buy your raw material?
- Stocks running low waiting for the next crop.
After bananas and watermelon, apple has the highest production volume around the globe, with around 93 million tonnes grown each year. This does not just reflect the popularity of the apples in the fresh market but also all the consumption of processed apples in the world. Among baby foods one of the most common products is apple puree; cider is a popular alcoholic drink; apple vinegar has become increasingly popular, for example in dressings.
Therefore, lots of different products are made from apple concentrate as main ingredient or as sweetener. For instance, some juice fruits use deionized apple concentrate instead of sugars or artificial sweeteners.
Apple Market
The top apple producers are China, Turkey, USA, and Poland. However, not all of them sell apple for processing. Some sell into the fresh market and others don’t export but keep their crop for internal consumption. Therefore, when buying apple concentrate the main suppliers are China and Poland, representing around the 25% of global supply. The 3 top importers of concentrate are the USA, Germany, and UK with 40% of global demand.
However, is important to keep in mind that product specifications vary by country. For instance, China is well known for its apple juice concentrate with low acidity. This might be interesting for some juice producers; for others medium acidity is preferable.
The acidity of the concentrate is also affected by the time of harvest. The earliest apples in the crop have the highest acidity.
Poland
We think the 2022/23 crop will be 20% lower than the previous year’s. Nevertheless, production of 280k tonnes of apple juice concentrate will be able to cover demand, with 85% of the volume to be exported. Processors start their production at the beginning of September and so the spot market in Poland shows limited offers, especially of low acidity concentrate.
China
We think Chinese apple juice concentrate production for the coming season will be below 300k tonnes. This is 200k tonnes below what’s produced in an average year.
The last due to two different factors. Firstly, there were high temperatures during the flowering period, which may have affected pollination. Secondly, government support to apple producers is declining.
First deliveries of this crop start in September and buyers will have to wait as producers in China are sold out.
