Supply Side Competitiveness on the Polish Tomato Market Against The Rest of the Visegrad Group Countries

This article deals with the competitiveness of the Polish vegetable industry, exactly the tomato producers and their competitiveness on the Visegrad Group market. The purpose of the study was to examine whether the supply side of the Polish tomato market was competitive with other Visegrad countries. The area and volume of tomato production was the subject of the study. The analysis was based on statistical data mainly from the FAOSTAT databases. The subject area was taken by 4 Visegrad Group countries (V-4), i.e. Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland as well as groups of countries belonging to EU-27, EU-12 and EU-15. The time span generally closes from 2004 to 2014. The calculated Gini and HHI coefficients have shown a strong concentration in the V-4 tomato market. They point out that Poland's position as a leader is still strengthening. The rest of the V-4 countries are hard to compete with Poland on this market. These countries are increasingly leaving the market and losing their customers. This makes the tomato producers in these countries often give up the production of tomatoes, which contributes to increasing the Polish market share in this market. The great challenge for Polish tomato producers is the need to invest in cultivation of tomato under cover, application of new cultivation technologies, search and production of new varieties of tomatoes.