In a recent letter to the government, Andrzej Gantner, the spokesman for the Polish Federation of Food Producers, said that the Polish government must act quickly to get back to making fertilizer and carbon dioxide so that dairy manufacturers and other parts of the food industry don’t lose a lot of money.
Prices for natural gas in Europe keep going up, which hurts the Polish chemical industry in a big way. Due to rising production costs, two big Polish chemical companies, Azoty and Anwil, have recently announced that they will stop making things. The price of gas in Europe is almost 10 times higher than it was a year ago.
Loss in the amount of milk made
Gantner said that this step put Polish dairy and beer companies in danger. He explained that carbon dioxide, which is a byproduct of making fertilizer, is needed to make a wide range of foods, like cheese.
“Without this gas, production will stop, and the losses will be unimaginable,” Gantner said, adding that this also affects the packaging part of the dairy industry. “It’s impossible to go from making things in a protective atmosphere to making things that are wrapped in paper all of a sudden,” said Gantner.
“Businesses are also being told that they don’t have enough nitric acid, which is needed to clean the production lines and make sure that food and production are safe,” he said, adding that this problem was also caused by the turmoil in the chemical industry.
Safety with food
Gantner said that the government was wrong to stop making fertilizer because they didn’t think about how that would affect the Polish food industry.
“The situation probably shows that the government doesn’t know much about food security in Poland,” said Gantner. He also said that food companies have few or no reserves of carbon dioxide and that it would take at least two weeks to get back to “some normal situation.”
“We want the prime minister and everyone else in charge of the current situation to know that it is not okay, no matter how the numbers work out from an economic point of view, to cause a shortage of raw materials, ingredients, and ways to make food,” Gantner said, suggesting that the production of fertilizers and carbon dioxide should start up again right away.
