Leading isoglucose producer ponders market trends and quotas

Cargill, the only domestic producer of isoglucose, will acquire 150,000 tones of wheat from farmers. The company processed about 500,000 tones in 2002 and was hesitating for a long time as to whether to buy more wheat in 2003. "We will buy a total of 300,000 tones. Half will be acquired from the market and half from intervention purchases," said Cargill's trade director Arkadiusz Wawryszewicz. The company would like to buy more, but production quotas have limited this. According to the Polish Federation of Food Producers (PFPŻ), the total demand for isoglucose in Poland amounts to 120,000 tones per year. The EU originally intended to permit Poland to produce only 6,200 tones of the product, but finally agreed to 27,000 tones. According to Wawryszewicz, real problems for the company will begin when the country joins the EU. "Until June 2004, we could still produce 62,000 tones of isoglucose. This number will however, be reduced to 40,000 tones and from then on things will only become more difficult." said Wawryszewicz. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B4) M.M.