Welcome to London Tu Kupisz Polskie Produkty

LONDON, Nov 21: 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 -- 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.

Britain was among only a handful of EU countries to immediately give unlimited access to job seekers from the 10 countries which joined the bloc then.

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.

Dogan Demir, the Turkish owner of a small shop in north London, started stocking Polish goods a year ago, and business is booming.

''This is mainly Polish people who buy them, but they buy a lot.

Soup, sausages, everyone buys Polish sausages in fact, apparently they're very good,'' he said.

Demir had three shelves of goods labelled only in Polish.

One jar, for example, contained a white, gungy substance -- a kind of congealed fat -- that a non-Pole would have some difficulty identifying.

Demir buys the merchandise from a Turkish-owned wholesaler, just one of many businesses that have realised Polish food -- like cabbage, meatballs and pickled cucumbers -- can mean big money.

BIG NAME COMPETITION

''It keeps on growing. In 2004, we had an 800,000 pound (1.5 million dollar) turnover, in 2005 it was 2 million, this year it will be 4 million. That is 100 percent yearly growth,'' said Magda Harvey, who started her Polish Specialities group as a single delicatessen in west London in 1999.

Harvey moved to Britain as a student in 1991 and now has a family here. But she still speaks English with an east European accent, and loves the rustic food of home.

''Our food is natural food, it is traditional food. As an importer I worry that Polish food might become the same as western (food) with its chemicals,'' she said, speaking in a cultural centre that rang with the squeals of playing children.

Besides running a handful of its own shops, her company supplies more than 400 outlets in London -- home of the largest Polish community in Britain. But she and other sellers of Polish goods, such as Web site www.bocian.co.uk which supplies all of Britain, face fresh competition from big-name retailers.

Supermarkets Tesco, Sainsbury's and others have all launched their own Polish brands in a bid to cash in on a community estimated at 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.

''We've had so much demand in the last six months for Polish foods that we spoke to the Polish community to find out the kinds of things that they missed the most from home,'' said Tesco ethnic project manager Martin Koyce.

''The type of items that Polish people miss the most and that are in greatest demand are comfort foods such as soup, pickled cabbage, and marshmallows covered with chocolate.

BEER

As yet, Polish food has failed to win over the wider British public -- unlike the dishes of the country's Asian population, which has provided chicken tikka masala, so popular it is almost an unofficial national dish.

But Polish beer has had more success.

Brewing giant SABMiller's Tyskie brand this year recorded a 400 percent year-on-year increase in sales in Britain and Ireland.

The company said most of those 3.2 million pints went to Poles.

But shopkeeper Demir, who advertises four different brands of Polish beer on a handwritten sign on his door, said British drinkers are waking up to the Polish taste.

''These Poles love eating and drinking beer. I sell maybe 10 kinds of beer, English people buy them as well,'' he said.

Right on cue, a man walked up the counter and, speaking with a distinctive London accent, bought four cans of Tyskie.

''See,'' said Demir. ''He comes in for Polish beer a couple of times a week, that one.''

REUTERS