Nice weather for ducks
So concerned are ice-cream, beer and soft-drinks producers about the drastic slump in their sales this year as a result of the lousy start to the summer that representatives of all three sectors even convened a conference on the subject.
While beer sales are down an average of eight percent from last year, soft-drinks producers, such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi and locally-owned Hoop, are in double trouble, for as well as enduring a summer marked by weather more akin to Plymouth in November, they are currently having to put up with soaring sugar prices that, according to the central statistics office, have risen 70 percent since January as a result of Poland's entry to the EU, where sugar prices are centrally controlled.
"The soft drinks industry has recorded sales down as much as 15 percent to 17 percent for the second quarter 2004, as compared to the same period of 2003," says Robert Niczewski, an adviser to Hoop.
But the disappointing weather has not spelt disaster for everyone. For although extreme tourism and 'active rest' companies say, perhaps surprisingly, that they haven't gained as a result of Poles backing off from the beaches, the Zakopane tourist office says there has been a lot more interest in hiking holidays than usual for this time of year.
Happiest of all, though, are stockings and tights producers.
"It's certainly been a very good summer for us," says Monika Kaźmierczak, marketing manager for Ferax-Iril, producer of the youth-orientated tights brand Gatta.
"We haven't seen summer sales of stockings, pop-socks and 15-20 dernier tights like this one ever since the cold second quarter of 2000," she reveals, which just goes to show that every cloud really does have a silver lining. And there have certainly been plenty of clouds of late.
While beer sales are down an average of eight percent from last year, soft-drinks producers, such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi and locally-owned Hoop, are in double trouble, for as well as enduring a summer marked by weather more akin to Plymouth in November, they are currently having to put up with soaring sugar prices that, according to the central statistics office, have risen 70 percent since January as a result of Poland's entry to the EU, where sugar prices are centrally controlled.
"The soft drinks industry has recorded sales down as much as 15 percent to 17 percent for the second quarter 2004, as compared to the same period of 2003," says Robert Niczewski, an adviser to Hoop.
But the disappointing weather has not spelt disaster for everyone. For although extreme tourism and 'active rest' companies say, perhaps surprisingly, that they haven't gained as a result of Poles backing off from the beaches, the Zakopane tourist office says there has been a lot more interest in hiking holidays than usual for this time of year.
Happiest of all, though, are stockings and tights producers.
"It's certainly been a very good summer for us," says Monika Kaźmierczak, marketing manager for Ferax-Iril, producer of the youth-orientated tights brand Gatta.
"We haven't seen summer sales of stockings, pop-socks and 15-20 dernier tights like this one ever since the cold second quarter of 2000," she reveals, which just goes to show that every cloud really does have a silver lining. And there have certainly been plenty of clouds of late.
