Poles eating more chocolate
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
12.04.2018 14:04
Chocolate consumption is on the rise in Poland with the average Pole eating about 6.3 kilograms of chocolate each year, the BGŻ BNP Paribas bank has said as Poland marked Chocolate Day on Thursday.
Photo: amalavida.tv/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Poles on average ate 30 percent more chocolate bars, chocolate candies and other chocolate products in 2016 than in 2011, the bank said.
This growth has been attributed to rising incomes.
"Chocolate products are one of the consumer goods which most strongly react to changes in household income levels," BGŻ BNP Paribas analyst Paweł Wyrzykowski said.
"The average disposable household income grew by 19.4 percent in the years from 2012 to 2016, which was one of the reasons consumption of chocolate … grew so quickly," Wyrzykowski added.
Meanwhile, major chocolate factories produced 247,000 tonnes of chocolate last year, 16 percent more than five years earlier.
Exports of Polish chocolate are also on the rise.
According to data from the European Union’s statistics office Eurostat, Poland was the bloc’s fifth-largest chocolate exporter last year, shipping 115,000 tonnes of chocolate abroad in 2017, up from 77,000 tonnes in 2012.
But Poland’s chocolate imports outnumber exports.
In 2017, Poland imported 128,000 tonnes, 71 percent more than in 2012.
About a third of the chocolate imported last year came from Germany, and roughly a tenth from Italy and the Netherlands.
Poland celebrates National Chocolate Day on April 12, while World Chocolate Day is marked on July 7. (vb)
Source: IAR