Meanwhile, the country’s beef meat industry increased its export sales by 3% to 344,000t.
Chicken meat dominated Poland’s poultry exports, with 482,000t, which represented an increase of 12% from 2012. Polish turkey meat exports decreased by 7% to 133,000t, while export sales of non-traditional types of poultry, including goose, duck and guinea fowl meat, reported a robust 44% increase to 27,000t. In addition to this, the country’s meat industry players exported 42,000t of processed poultry products, up 22% over 2012, and 15,000t of live poultry, an increase of 26%.
Meanwhile, Poland’s poultry meat imports were also up last year. In total, 96,000t of poultry meat were imported to the Polish market, compared with some 84,000t in 2012. As a result, the country’s trade balance for the poultry meat market increased to €1.106bn for 2013, according to the ARR, which based its report on figures obtained from the country’s Central Statistical Office (GUS).
As much as 90% of Poland’s beef meat output is intended for export sales, according to the report. Despite this, 28,000t of various beef meat products were imported to the Polish market last year, a significant increase from 23,000t a year earlier.
Polish beef meat "is price-competitive on the EU market, which is a beneficial factor to the rise in export sales", said the report. In 2013, the rise in domestic consumption decreased Poland’s beef meat trade balance to €965m, a decrease of 1% compared with a year earlier.
In 2012, an average Pole consumed 71.7kg of meat, including 1.8kg of beef and 26.6kg of poultry, according to data released by the GUS. This means beef and poultry represented 2.5% and 37.1% of the total meat consumption in Poland, respectively.