Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Shortage of high-quality apples in Russian market
According to market participants, apple stocks in Russian farms continue to decline rapidly. The number of farmers who announced the completion of apple sales is growing rapidly this season, according to EastFruit.
This situation allowed farmers to slightly increase the selling prices for apples. However, it is necessary to emphasize that the rise in price was observed only in the segment of high-quality apple. Today, farmers in the main regions of production are ready to ship high-quality products at RUB 35-65/kg ($ 0.53-0.99/kg), which is on average by 12% more expensive than at the end of the last working week.
We reported earlier that in January of this year, the apple export from Moldova to Russia reached record levels. So, only from the beginning of the current year, Moldova shipped to the Russian market 27,700 tons of fresh apples, which exceeded the figure for 2018 by 8%.
The main suppliers of imported apples to t Russia today are Belarus, Moldova, and Serbia. According to market operators, an apple of higher quality winter varieties comes from Serbia and Moldova at prices ranging from RUB 55-80/ kg ($0.84-1.22/kg).
Despite the rise in apple prices this week, Russian farmers continued to complain that the demand of apples in Russia this year is much lower than a year earlier. Also, manufacturers noted that the selling prices for these products are much lower than last year. So, at the beginning of March last year, they sold the winter apple at RUB 40-65/kg, which is on average 12% less expensive than today.