December 14 2011, 10:33 Fruit-Inform

Imported fruits and vegetables still preferred by Russian retailers

Notwithstanding solid overproduction of vegetables in Russia, retailers still prefer to purchase imported produce. This information is regularly reported to Fruit-Inform by Russian producers, who try to come to an agreement with supermarkets about supply of their produce.

Russian retailers explain such a situation simply: the quality of local fruits and vegetables leaves much to be desired. Even taking into account its lower prices, domestic produce often cannot compete with graded, washed and packed imported fruits and vegetables.

For example, ex-farm prices of domestic carrots currently vary within RUB 4-5/kg (EUR 0.10-0.12/kg), while Chinese, Polish, Dutch and Belgian carrots are offered at no lower than RUB 15/kg (EUR 0.36/kg). Nevertheless, retailers work with importers more willingly, as marketable state of produce is of the highest importance for sales volumes during the season of relatively low prices.

The same situation is observed in the Russian apple market. Russian producers sell their apples at RUB 20-25/kg (EUR 0.48-0.60/kg), but retailers prefer Polish apples at prices no lower than RUB 29-30/kg (EUR 0.69-0.72/kg).

“This season turned out to be a marker of the Russian fresh produce sector problems”, Tetiana Getman, Head of Fruit-Inform, says. “In the past 2 seasons, under the influence of high prices, many farms focused solely on expanding production areas and storage construction. However, only few of them took care of the produce marketing development, therefore such a policy will result rather negatively for some farmers”.

More information about current developments in the Russian and Ukrainian fruit and vegetable markets together with on-line price monitoring, official trade statistics and reliable analytics is available for subscribers of Fruit-Inform Weekly.