Market for sweet corn ripens

Corn on the cob's rather late arrival on Polish plates has done little to thwart its popularity. Once considered a strange American food concept, demand for the sloppy summer vegetable has never been greater, corn producers said. Not only are vendors of ready-to-eat sweet corn sprouting up all over the country, some hypermarkets such as France-based Auchan, are even having to import the crop off-season to satisfy demand. But the greatest demand for corn is in the south of the country and in major cities, such as Warsaw and Kraków, producers and hypermarket representatives said. The sweet, handheld vegetable has only been in Poland since the early 1990s. Before then, farmers were limited to the standard variety, which was mainly used as animal feed, corn growers said. "The corn that was grown then wasn't the sweet variety and wasn't really meant for human consumption, but people still sold it off the streets," said Ludwik Majlert, who owns a sweet corn farm in Białołźka on the outskirts of Warsaw. "That type of corn looks the same, but tastes completely different. People had to learn to appreciate the real taste of sweet corn, and when the sweet variety finally arrived on the market, they had to learn not to associate it with the other sort."

Real sweetie Majlert, who sells his corn to hypermarkets, such as Auchan and France-based Geant, for zł. 0.5-zł. 1 per ear, began growing corn about 10 years ago. He said he was one of the first to bring the sweet version to the Warsaw market. "There used to be some amateur production, but apart from that I was one of the first to produce for the Warsaw market, although by then (corn distribution) was already well-established in Kraków," Majlert said. And hypermarkets were largely responsible for the increase in sweet corn's popularity, he said. "When hypermarkets began to stock it, people gave corn another chance because they trusted that Auchan would ensure it was sweet if it said so on the package," he said. Majlert, who said he had always grown sweet corn on a small scale, intensified his production with the arrival of hypermarkets in Warsaw. But with sweet corn only in season for two to three months due to it peak production time in mid-August, he grows other niche products, such as asparagus, Chinese cabbage and lettuce. "I like to dabble with a lot of strange products, (but) sweet corn has definitely been the most successful," Majlert said. And as sweet corn's demand and popularity grows in Poland, so does the competition among producers, corn growers said. Jacek Wysocki, who owns a cornfield in Płońsk, said competition has increased because sweet corn is easy to produce and highly profitable. "I started producing (sweet corn) about eight years ago because I was told it would develop, and I knew it was very popular in the United States," Wysocki said. "That's because it's a tasty and fun alternative." Wysocki stepped up his distribution to the national level, but sells mainly to wholesalers as well as some supermarkets, such as Bomi. Wysocki said he does his best to assure buyers of his product's quality, but after that, it's up to the wholesalers who sell the corn to supermarkets. "Sweet corn has the right amount of sugar for only a few days," he said. "Also, if it's harvested at the wrong moment, it's simply not tasty. But I always distribute to wholesalers when its quality is at its best. I just can't control it if they delay distribution further."