The European Frozen Fruits Market - Belgium Holds the Lead as the Most Promising Importer

IndexBox has just published a new report "EU: Frozen Fruits - Market Report. Analysis And Forecast To 2025". Here is a summary of the report’s key findings.

Frozen fruit is a popular product in the EU and is used largely in the food and food service industries as an ingredient or component for cooking. Frozen fruit is also currently enjoying a surge in demand from retail customers. In 2017, the volume of the EU frozen fruit consumption reached X tonnes.

In value terms, the EU frozen fruit market totaled €X in 2017, increasing by an average figure of +X% per year from 2007 to 2017. After seeing a contraction over the 2008-2009 period, the volume of consumption recovered slightly and then levelled off through to 2014; over the last three years, however, it surged sharply. This is mainly due to the fact that vegan, gluten-free and natural food items are now more widespread, against the general trend towards healthy eating and lifestyle behaviours. Frozen fruit products are both easy to prepare and convenient in terms of storage; these factors are also contributing to their increased consumption. 

Germany (X tonnes) dominated the consumption of frozen fruits in 2017, accounting for X% of the EU market. Germany was followed by Italy (X tonnes), France (X tonnes), Poland (X tonnes), the UK (X tonnes), Belgium (X tonnes), and the Netherlands (X tonnes), comprising approx. X% of EU frozen fruit consumption.

A varied diet format and a more acute awareness regarding proper nutrition, combined with population growth and rising consumer income figures, will act as the key impetus factors with regard to the growth of frozen fruit consumption in the EU in the medium term. Despite the various tensions currently prevailing in the EU in the form of trade disagreements, a politically uncertain climate in some Member States and rising oil prices, the European Commission maintains that the key base factors to achieve sustained growth in the EU area remain in place. Market performance is forecast to improve further, with an anticipated CAGR of +X% for the period from 2017 to 2025, which is expected to bring the market volume to X tonnes by 2025.

How to Choose the European Export Market for Suppliers of Frozen Fruit

IndexBox analysts expect that one of the crucial initiatives to be considered by local producers in the long run would be the search for new European markets. Our analysts developed a step-by-step algorithm for solving this problem, based on the use of big data, which are processed by the IndexBox AI Platform. The decision-making logic is shown in the figure below.

In the process of determining the best export prospects, it is necessary to answer four key questions: 

X. Which markets performed best in terms of frozen fruit sales in the last X years? And which markets were among the outsiders?

X. Which countries are the most promising, in terms of frozen fruits consumption growth, and which ones are already saturated?

X. In which countries are local producers unable to satisfy the increasing demand for frozen fruits? Or, in some cases, which countries do not produce frozen fruits, at all?

X. Which markets are the most profitable for frozen fruits producers?

Previously, in order to answer these questions, analysts would need at least X weeks and over X sources of information. Today, using only one tool - the IB AI-platform, you can answer this question in less than X minutes. 

So, here is the first chart and the first question: Which markets performed best in terms of frozen fruit sales growth in the last X years and reached high figures in 2017? And which markets were among the outsiders? Here we will compare the volumes of consumption and growth rates for all the countries under review.

We can see that Poland (X tonnes), Belgium (X tonnes), Sweden (X tonnes), Hungary (X tonnes) and Lithuania (X tonnes) emerged as the largest and fastest growing markets for frozen fruit and nut suppliers. Germany (X tonnes), Italy (X tonnes), France (X tonnes), the UK (X tonnes) and the Netherlands (X tonnes), together with some other countries, constituted the largest markets which are not currently expanding.

Next question: Which countries are the most promising, in terms of frozen fruit consumption growth, and which ones are already sufficiently saturated?

Here we estimate the average per capita consumption in 2017 and its dynamics since 2007. 

The chart enables identifying markets with a large and growing average per capita consumption. This group of countries includes Belgium (X kg per X persons), Lithuania (X kg per X persons) and Sweden (X kg per X persons), amongst others. A large and growing per capita consumption signifies consistently high popularity of frozen fruits in these markets. However, it might be a sign that these markets are close to saturation. Besides, in Austria (X kg per X persons), Germany (X kg per X persons), the Netherlands (X kg per X persons) and Denmark (X kg per X persons) the per capita consumption is some of the EU’s largest, but its growth in the past X years has been comparatively low or declining, which also indicates high market saturation. 

In the third step, the question is the following: In which countries are local producers unable to satisfy the increasing demand for frozen fruits if they produce it at all?

Further, our task is to identify countries with a high share of imports, which will testify of the existing infrastructure for importers and market prospects for organizing new supplies. 

The diagram shows that Belgium (X tonnes) and Poland (X tonnes) of frozen fruits imported in 2017 are by far the largest importing markets that have been growing rapidly for the past X years. Germany (X tonnes) is by far the largest importer overall, but alongside with France (X tonnes), the Netherlands (X tonnes), the UK (X tonnes) and Italy (X tonnes), its imports growth remains quite slow or even negative, compared to the leading countries.

Finally, basing on the counties left after our selection process, we will find markets with high and growing import prices to identify the most profitable ones to exports to.

This group of countries indicates the most profitable markets for frozen fruit and nut suppliers. It includes: the UK ($X per tonne), France ($X per tonne) and Belgium ($X per tonne).

Summary

Comparing the results of the X diagrams, we can state that the United Kingdom, France and Belgium now appear to be the most promising markets for foreign suppliers of frozen fruits in the EU. In these countries, there is either a significant or rapidly growing volume of imports. Moreover, import prices in most of the above-mentioned countries remain relatively high. Italy is also an interesting option as the frozen fruit imports there are sufficiently large and import prices are growing slightly.

Using the IB AI-platform you can perform such an analysis and many other operations yourself. Our specialists will be happy to answer questions. It's our job to help you make informed decisions. 

Do you want to know more about the European frozen fruit market? Get the latest trends and insight from our report. It includes a wide range of statistics on

• frozen fruit market share
• frozen fruit prices
• frozen fruit industry
• frozen fruit sales
• frozen fruit import
• frozen fruit export
• frozen fruit market forecast
• frozen fruit price forecast
• key frozen fruit producers

Source: IndexBox Platform