An analysis of the economic role of Hungarian producer organisations in terms of public accountancy

Dudás, Gyula – Juhász, Anikó

Keywords: fruit and vegetable sector, Producer Organisations, wholesalers, accounting data

The European Union delegates an important institutional role to the Producer Or-ganisations (PO) in the coordination of the fruit and vegetable sector; nevertheless the market share of POs has not increased considerably either in Hungary or in the EU. The paper describes the process of establishment of POs in Hungary from 1999 until January 2013. In total 150 enterprises were recognised as POs in Hungary in the last 15 years; as a result of business closures and mergers, and the establishment of new en-terprises, in January 2013 77 POs were recognised. In the initial years the great major-ity of POs chose the co-operative form but from 2009 onwards the proportion of lim-ited liability companies increased continuously in case of new POs. POs are categorised as fruit and vegetable wholesalers according to the official statistical classification thus it was an obvious step to compare the business performance of POs with that of the fruit and vegetable wholesalers. The net sales of the fruit and vegetable wholesale sec-tor reached HUF 240 billion in 2011 and the POs’ share of this was approximately 20 per cent. The share of export sales from the turnover was more than double in the case of wholesalers, even though it only reached 20 per cent. The profit level of wholesalers became negative in the last three years; on the other hand POs made a loss in five out of the eight studied years. In the last 15 years POs have built up a remarkable logistical infrastructure using subsidies. At the same time the repayment of long term credits that were necessary for the investment in infrastructure resulted in a competitive dis-advantage compared to wholesalers, who realised almost same turnover with consid-erably lower invested asset values and long term liabilities.

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