The Place of the Polish Food Industry in the European Union

The Polish food industry holds an important place in the EU food industry. In 2016, Poland was the 6th largest producer of food in the EU-28, with the share of 8.6% in the European output of the food industry. In the years 2004-2016, the output value of the Polish food sector expressed in comparable prices (adjusted by the purchasing power index in EUR) increased by nearly 60% to EUR 95.4 billion, whereby the EU-15 countries recorded an increase by just 25% to EUR 914 billion and the EU-13 countries an increase by 33% to EUR 192.5 billion. Over 80% of the food produced in the EU comes from EU-15 countries, and its main producers are: Germany (16.3% of the share of the EU food industry production), France (14.0%), Italy (12.2%), Spain (10.7%) and the United Kingdom (9.8%). That implies that the development pace of the Polish food sector during the analysed period was among the fastest across the EU, which reduced the distance between polish food industry and the most developed EU countries, and Poland strengthened its position on the EU market. That contributed to enhancing labour productivity and increasing the turnover generated by enterprises in the food industry in Poland.