Hero section

Ordinary apples and super apples

INTERPOMA CONGRESS

Organic and conventional production increasingly follow two separate paths

Are all apples that grow alone organic? Absolutely not, only those that are produced according to a European specification, which covers everything from production to marketing and which receives a certificate. How much of the total production in Europe is organic today? 3%, with Poland, France, Germany and Italy in the first 4 places. Has the market for organic apples grown in recent years? Yes, on average 7% per year. So at some point in the future, we will only have organic apples? Unfortunately no, it's not that simple.

These are some of the questions that Fritz Prem, founder and president of the European Forum for Organic Fruit in Kaindorf (Austria), answered at the international congress "Apple in the World" during Interpoma 2018 in Bolzano. Prem, born in 1957, himself a passionate apple farmer who switched to organic in 1996, has no doubt to answer the most important question:
Organic products will never completely replace non-organic products, simply because they are already part of other production and trading systems. Prem explaines this by inviting the audience of Interpoma to a fantasy journey into the future, into the year 2023. What kind of apple production and market will there be by then?

On the one hand, there will be a huge conventional production without synthetic residues from harvesting - but not organic - which will become cheaper and cheaper thanks to strong social dumping. These apples will be available in supermarkets in large "no logo" packages. On the other side of the market, a sector will have developed consisting of organic apples - which in Europe will have reached 6% of the total - with more varieties than today. From a geografic point of view, those markets will grow where the consumption of organic food is already more developed, in Europe mainly Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries and Austria.
In addition to the organic varieties, a few other "Club" varieties will grow alongside the Pink Lady and make the leap into the premium segment: A market segment that will always remain for a few.

The picture that emerges will therefore be that of a very polarized market, like many others in today's economy.

Do you want to learn more about organic apple growing and the European Organic Fruit Forum EBF? 

Speech of Fritz Prem

pdf (547.42 KB)
Download