According to the data of the Ministry of Agriculture, in the first half of this year foreign sales of Polish agri-food products amounted to €16.4 billion and was by 7 percent better than last year. There is a significant share of exports of livestock, meat and its products, and its volume largely depends on food safety. The industry is struggling with problems such as ASF or avian flu, and is additionally harmed by gaps in procedures, which may result in such phenomena as the so-called the sunbed scandal in early 2019. This has an impact on the image of Polish meat, and thus also on its export.

In the first half of the year, the meat industry sold goods worth €3.1 billion abroad. It was a result of 4 percent worse than in the first half of 2019. It was mainly influenced by the pandemic and restrictions in foreign trade. Orders to the European Union, China and Muslim countries have decreased, and meat producers are heavily dependent on exports. Since June, however, the situation in the entire segment of the sale of agri-food products has been improving. Experts emphasize that this is due to the good reputation of Polish food.

"Polish food is rather safe, but certain actions or their lack of them may make this food dangerous," Tadeusz Wojciechowski, president of the Polish Food Safety Forum Foundation.

An example here is the lack of implementation of Regulation 625, which entered into force in mid-December last year, but unfortunately has not been fully implemented, therefore various conditions related to food safety may suffer.

(Newseria)