FRUIT LOGISTICA 2023
At the GL Group stand. Urszula Leinert in the middle.
Ansław: Brexit was a
challenge.Dorota Ozga on the right.
For mushroom exporters to the UK, the first few months after Brexit
constituted a nightmare.
did not affect the company as badly as everyone expected, the same happened with the pande- mic. After a short period of uncertainty and falls in the horeca sector, the company (very in tune with what Banken told us) could even observe growth in the wholesale sector. “What Brexit and the pandemic taught us however”, said Onopiuk “was, that we need to diversify. We cannot rely on just one country, one market. So now we send less cars to more countries.” The Russian inva- sion did not affect their sales as Ukraine was never a market for them. They notice however that the war caused the developing mushroom sector in this country to collapse (see MB112). The gap was quickly filled by other countries, so the production in Poland rose again. The company stays faithful to FL and this edition brought many interesting meetings “The first day was a real flood of visitors!” The stand was visited not only by their present and future clients but also by their competitors for whom they always have a nice cup of coffee and fantas- tic choice of finger foods and sweets. According to Onopiuk the key to survive the crisis is the ability to cooperate and support each other instead of competing. “Each company has its strengths, its own advanced strategies and mar- kets, so the point is not to be everywhere at any price but to learn how to use the mutual advan- tages in a win-to-win business environment.” However, the company is struggling with high cost prices as well. GL had to put up prices for their clients already 3 times last year just to cover the cost price without earning money. The remedy according to Leinert is to keep control and react quickly. They hold management board meetings several times a month, constantly wat- ching the market, ready to react quickly. They are both convinced that the company cannot stop to invest. The only difference is that they are cur- rently not investing that much in expanding the company but much more in efficient energy solutions, like solar panels or in packaging pro-
40 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
duction, allowing them to become less reliable on external suppliers.
Ansław: ‘We learned how to swim in that sea’
Even more difficult could have been the post- Brexit situation for Ansław, a family company from West Poland whose main business used to be export of fresh mushrooms to the UK. Dorota Ozga, whom we consult on that, says that the first few months were tough for them. “The clients stayed the same, but all procedures had to be changed, the costs were higher and the logis- tics were an extreme challenge at the beginning. In the first months the customs authorities used to order the entire lorry with fresh mushrooms to be unloaded and checked at the UK border.” A nightmare for the exporters and their clients. After about half a year Ansław learnt how to deal with it and the situation got more stable. “We learnt how to swim in that sea” says Ozga, “we set up our own customs agency, we expanded our fleet to 40 cars and started 2 years ago to supply the Scandinavian market as well. We are happy to hear that the company is already recognized over there. “And this is not our last word.” The pandemic will be remembered by Ansław as a really hard time. At some point the company had only 20% of their ordinary order volume. With pride does Ozga report however, that not a single employee was made redundant. A big challenge, knowing that the company employs about 120 people and produces 400 tons a week. The pandemic did not put an end to this challen- ging period. The war in Ukraine resulted in dra- matic shortage of straw and rise of compost prices. The remedy seemed to be the character of the company, run by a dedicated family od owners who had a close look at their business processes and took great care of their people. “They are our resources, we need them!” says Ozga.
After consulting their clients and contacts, the
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