Exports of Polish bakery and pastry products increased in the first seven months of 2023, despite unfavourable external conditions including rising energy and raw material prices causing the increase of the production costs. According to the Polish Economic Institute (PIE), Poland is the world leader in the export of waffles and wafers.

Bakery and pastry products include bread, cakes and pastries and biscuits. Between 2012 and 2022, the value of Polish exports of those products increased by around 230 %. Last year, Polish companies sold 812,000 tonnes of such products abroad for over EUR 2.5 billion. This brought Poland’s around 5.6% share in global exports of those products.

Among bakery and pastry products, wafers and waffles are the most important item in Polish exports. According to the Central Statistical Office, they accounted for around 33 % of exports in 2022. In total, there were 155,000 tonnes of waffles and wafers sent abroad, which were worth EUR 828 million. In terms of volume, this is 17 % more than in 2021 and more than 32 % more in terms of value.

Polish waffles and wafers also proved resilient to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a 34.9 % increase in the volume of sales of these products abroad compared to 2019 and a 60.9 % increase in value.

The most important sales markets were EU countries. Germany dominated with about 17.8 % share in the value of Polish exports of such products, France (8.4 %), the Czech Republic (5 %) and Romania (4.5 %). Among non-EU countries, the largest recipients were the United Kingdom (13.5 %), the United States (about 4 %), Russia (about 3 %) and Saudi Arabia (2.2 %).

PIE is a state-owned economic think tank. Its research areas are primarily macroeconomics, energy and climate, foreign trade, economic foresight, digital economy and behavioural economics.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński