Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Ukraine: high-quality apples sold mainly to retail chains
For the present, high-quality apples are sold in Ukraine mainly through retail chains, while middlemen prefer less expensive produce in the majority of cases.
Ukrainian growers manage to ship premium-quality apples only in contracted volumes at prices varying between UAH 5.40-6.50/kg (EUR 0.28-0.34/kg). Furthermore, retailers often make attempts to reduce purchase prices in view of consumers’ extremely low demand for those fruits.
Meanwhile, growers face serious problems with sales of low-quality apples. They manage to ship them at no higher than UAH 5/kg (EUR 0.26/kg), and sales rates remain low due to abundant supply in the market.
Nevertheless, prices of domestic apples are still 18% higher in Ukraine compared with the same period of the previous season. For comparison, prices were not higher than UAH 5.50/kg (EUR 0.29/kg) in the second half of November 2013.