UK: Polish food and drinks are experiencing a popularity boost in the UK.

If an alien visited London, he could be forgiven for thinking the sign "Tu Kupisz Polskie Produkty" was a local greeting meaning "come in", "welcome" or perhaps "open for business". The phrase, which loosely translates as "Buy Polish Goods Here", is stuck up outside shop after shop and is a reflection of the purchasing power of Britain's newest wave of migrants. Polish workers have arrived in Britain in their tens of thousands since their country joined the European Union in 2004 and they have brought their traditions and food with them. By March this year, around 230,000 Poles had applied for work permits, making them Britain's fastest growing community. At first some tabloid newspapers depicted the new arrivals as an impoverished horde bent on stealing British jobs, but now British shop and business owners are realising that new people means new customers, and the supermarket shelves are lined with Polish goods. Recently leading grocery stores have realised the opportunities in supplying Polish products. Supermarkets Tesco and Sainsbury's have launched their own ranges of Polish brands in a bid to cash in on a community estimated at between 500,000 to 1 million people, when you include self-employed, dependants and Poles who arrived after the communist takeover of Poland that followed World War Two. The import of Polish food and drinks to the UK is partly driven by Magda Harvey, who opened her first Polish Specialities store in London in 1999. One store became two and now Harvey runs the Polish social club, organising activities for Poles in London every day of the week, a restaurant and a distribution company supplying 400 stores and supermarket chains in London with Polish food and drinks. "Since 2004 we definitely doubled if not tripled our income. If we compare 2004 to 2005 we doubled our income and if we compare 2006 to 2005 we doubled it again. In the last few years we observed a few hundred percent growth of the business," Harvey said. Harvey's turnover in 2004 was 800,000 pounds sterling, in 2005 it was 2 million, and this year it will be 4 million. "It's the Poles who come here who are buying them. As soon as the managers of shops and supermarkets noticed that Poles are everywhere, they obviously saw Poles as good clientele so they started to introduce Polish products to their shops in order to attract them," said Harvey. Harvey moved to Britain as a student in 1991 and now has a family here. But she still loves the rustic food of home. "Poles will always miss this food and buy it. Meanwhile, people of other nationalities will be looking at the new products and will start to buy Polish products. This makes me happy and proud of being a Pole, that Polish food can be found in supermarkets and is becoming more popular," she said. Polish products have even managed to infiltrate the most arch typical of the British culture, the pub. Several pubs including leading chain, JD Wetherspoon have started stocking up on Polish beer. The Polish beer Tyskie has become popular and over a seven month period from May to October brewery firm SABMiller sold more than 10 million pints of the brand in UK and Ireland. This was a five-fold increase on the year before. Through sales in off-licences, supermarkets and in Polish bars and restaurants SABMiller captured more than 30% of Polish beer sales in the UK. At Wetherspoon's customers can enjoy Okocim, Zywiec, Tyskie and Lech and polish barkeeper Jarek Pawlowicz is proud of providing polish beer to his customers. He says the fact that the British like polish beer is a sign of its high quality and he thinks Poles living in the UK enjoy the close connections to home. "Each of them misses Poland more or less and this reminds them of home. I think this was the main reason," Pawlowicz said. For Pawlowicz, serving Polish beer reminds him of good times with his friends at home and in Britain this is yet an another sign of how large and influential the Polish community has become.

ITN Source | December 6, 2006

Tags:. .traditions. .britains. .wave. .attract. .purchasing