Author Archives: CrispConsulting

Wal-Mart Hires Lev Khasis

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Wal-Mart Stores hired Lev Khasis, former head of food retailer X5, as a senior vice president and chief leverage officer, a spokeswoman for the company said Thursday, an indication that Wal-Mart has yet to abandon plans for an entry into Russia.

Wal-Mart appeared to have given up in December, when it closed its Moscow office due to a lack of acquisition opportunities.

Khasis, who grew X5 by acquisition into a Russian market leader with $11 billion in annual sales, left the company in March after five years. The Wal-Mart spokeswoman said Khasis would be based at the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, reporting to international chief executive Doug McMillon.

Source: www.themoscowtimes.com

China doubles citrus exports to Russia

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According to Fruit-Inform Project’s analysts, the market operators should pay much attention to China’s expansion in the Russian market for citrus fruits. Chinese suppliers managed to increase their exports to the Russian Federation more than twofold in the past 4 years. Such an achievement enabled China to enter the group of six biggest exporters of citrus fruits to Russia and outstrip such important exporters as Spain, Pakistan and Israel.

Mandarins are the most popular category of Chinese citrus exports and account for more than a half of China’s total exports to Russia. Grapefruits are the second major category.

Source: www.freshplaza.com

Chile and Argentina have increased the export of apples to Russia

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Analysts from “APK-Inform: fruit and vegetables” say that in the year 2011 Russia has increased the volumes of apple supply from Chile and Argentina. During the first half-year period Russia has imported 22% more apples from Chile and 90% more apples from Argentina, than for the whole year 2010. In such a way Chile has come in the fourth place and Argentina in the third place among the top apple suppliers in Russia.

The main reason for that has become the shortage of apples in Poland and other countries of the European Community in spring 2011. High prices for good apples and its limited supply in the countries of the European Community have made the importers look for the alternative in Southern America.

Source: www.lol.org.ua

Russia: X5 Retail appoints supermarket format director

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X5 Retail Group N.V., a Russia-based retailer, has appointed Igor Sotnikov as the company’s new supermarket format director.

Having joined the Company in 2001, Mr Sotnikov spent almost 10 years mostly in supermarket operations. He succeeds Ekaterina Stolypina, who is leaving X5 for personal reasons.

Andrei Gusev, CEO of X5 Retail Group, commented: “We are grateful to Ekaterina for her valuable contribution in managing supermarkets and hypermarkets. Our strategy is to manage these two formats separately. As an experienced retail executive Igor is ideally placed to further develop our winning supermarket format. X5 is in the process of recruiting senior talent to take over the management of hypermarkets and expects to complete this process in the nearest future.”

Mr Sotnikov has extensive managerial experience with X5. Igor had been running Perekrestok operations since 2005. From 2007 he headed logistics of X5. Igor served as CEO of X5 Ukraine for several years.

Source: www.freshplaza.com

Apple juice concentrate prices decrease in Russia & Ukraine

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Apple juice concentrate prices decrease in Russia & Ukraine.

According to Fruit-Inform Project, apple juice concentrate prices started decreasing in Russia and Ukraine last week. As of September 2, 2011, prices fell to 900 euro per tonne that made processors reduce purchasing prices for raw apples.

According to the market participants, the final understanding of the situation in the market will be possible only after the appearance of Chinese apple juice concentrate made of apples of a new harvest (October-November of the current year). For the present, rather high prices for apples against a background of relatively high apple production in Europe make manufacture of juice.

Source: www.freshplaza.com

Deflation in Russia

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In August 2011 consumer costs have deflated 0.2% for the first time in the last 6 years. This fact has decreased the index of annual inflation to 8.2%. The August deflation has become a suddenness for the money authorities and for the most part of analysts, that had forecasted the zero variation of prices in August and had expected the deflation in September .

The main reason is the landslide of prices for fruit and vegetables (16%). At the same time the average food prices have fallen in 1.4%. Prices for non-food goods and services have slightly increased: 0.5% and 0.3% respectively. However, some fundamental factors, such as retardation of economic growth and money supply, have influenced the reduction of inflation. If there won’t be any internal or external shocks, these factors will impose the tendency of the reduction of inflation.

There are not so many risks for the accelerating inflation in the medium-term perspective. The most important ones are increasing pre-election expenditures and large liquidity injecting to the Russian banking sector (in case of aggravation of problems in the banking sector of the European Community).

At the moment analysts are decreasing their inflationary forecasts for the year 2011 from 8% to 7.5%.

Source: www.kommersant.ru

The right to approve sanitary standards and rules has passed to Ministry of Health and Social Development

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The President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev has signed a law cardinally changing the distribution of authority between the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation and Rospotrebnadzor (Russian Federal Consumer Rights Protection and Human Health Control Service).

The head of Rospotrebnadzor Gennady Onischenko has lost the rights to approve new sanitary standards and rules. It means that from now on the most important Russian sanitary inspector can’t make such important decisions in the trade sphere as, for example, prohibition of deep-frozen poultry meat sale or import of vegetables from Europe.

From now on, the officials of the Ministry of Health and Social Development will coordinate the elaboration and enaction of new standards. At present, Rospotrebnadzor has only got the opportunity to give recommendations to the Ministry. By the way, the officials of the Ministry of Health and Social Development have already declared that they were going to review all the standards, approved by Rospotrebnadzor.

Sourse: www.fruitnews.ru

North Korea in Russian lease negotiations

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North Korea and Russia are in talks for a massive Far East land lease deal for agricultural production.

North Korea has been in talks with Russia on plans to lease swathes of farmland in the country’s Far East to grow vegetables and grain.

A North Korean delegation, including the country’s leader Kim Jong-il, visited Russia last month and last week held talks with authorities in the Amur region on the plan, reported Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

The proposed deal is for the lease of around 200,000ha of idle land in Amur, largely to produce grain, but also vegetables. The deal has an added importance following heavy rains in North Korea in June and July, which reportedly caused significant damage to the country’s agricultural production.

“The North Korean authorities are planning an unprecedented agricultural project – to create a farm in the Far East to grow soybeans, potatoes, corn and other crops,” an unnamed regional Russian official told RIA Novosti.

“Everything that Korean citizens need, because the issue of food shortages there are acute from time to time due to land shortages.”

The proposal requires the North Korean company formed to manage the land must be registered in Amur, and the initial lease cost of the land comes to around 50 rubles (US$1.70) per hectare.

The North Korean delegation will reportedly consider the terms of the lease next week, the report said.

Source: www.fruitnet.com

Almost 7 trillion rubles will be diverted to the development of the agro-industrial estate before the year 2020.

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The Minister of Agriculture has promised that the amount of financing of the program of the development of the agro-industrial estate for the years 2013—2020 will make more than 6,7 trillion rubles, 2,1 trillion rubles from this sum will come from the state budget. For comparison: a little more than 1,4 trillion rubles were diverted for the program of the years 2008—2012, and only 0,6 trillion rubles from this sum came from the state budget.

According to the project of the state program, the development of the agro-industrial estate will be influenced by several factors: on the one hand, the measures for the improvement of the stability of the agricultural production will be noticeable, on the other hand the difficult macroeconomic situation caused by the consequences of the crisis will remain.

The Minister of Agriculture thinks, that the amount of agricultural production for the years 2013—2020 will grow 2,4—2,5% annually, and the amount of nutrition products will increase 4,3—5%. The higher rate will be for meat, milk and dairy products, fruit and vegetables. The realization of the state program will permit the increase of the relative weight of domestic food products.

Source: www.fruitnews.ru

Американский фруктовый павильон на выставке World Food Moscow

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13-16 сентября 2011 года. Экспоцентр на Красной Пресне, Москва, выставка World Food Moscow. Павильон 2.2

Американский фруктовый павильон каждый год открывается на выставке World Food Moscow. Координация павильона осуществляется под патронажем Министерства сельского хозяйства США и ряда некоммерческих фруктовых ассоциаций США.

В павильоне вы сможете получить информацию об индустрии прозводства яблок, груш и винограда в США, контактную информацию производителей, характеристику сортов и сезонности, прогнозы на урожай 2011-12, программах продвижения фруктов США и вариантах сотрудничества с ассоциациями. Мы приглашаем участников российского фруктового рынка в Американский фруктовый павильон!

Участники:

Вашингтонская яблочная комиссия
Некоммерческая ассоциация объединяет фермеров, выращивающих яблоки в штате Вашингтон. Штат производит до 60% всех яблок в США, что составляет более 100 миллионов бушелей (коробка 20 килограмм). Сезон сбора яблок штата Вашингтон, начинается в середине августа и заканчивается в начале ноября. Поставки яблок штата Вашингтон по многим сортам осуществляются круглый год.

Основные культивируемые сорта: Red Delicious, Gala, Fuji, Granny Smith, Golden Delicious. Также популярны Cripps Pink, HoneyCrisp, Braeburn, Cameo. США – один из пяти ведущих поставщиков яблок в мире.

Совет по экспорту яблок США
Некоммерческая ассоциация, объединяющая производителей яблок из 11 штатов (Нью-Йорк, Мичиган, Калифорния, Пенсильвания, Вирджиния, Новая Англия), где производится около 40% яблок США.

Основные культивируемые сорта: McIntosh, Empire, Crispin, Gala, Honeycrisp, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Fuji, Cripps Pink, Granny Smith, Braeburn and Red Rome.

Бюро по грушам США
Некоммерческая ассоциация, которая объединяет производителей груш в штатах Северо-Запада США: Вашингтон и Орегон. На международном рынке регион входит в тройку ведущих производителей. Сезон сбора урожая начинается в августе, а в сентябре созревают популярные зимние сорта. Благодаря современным технологиям хранения, поставки зимних сортов груш продолжаются до следующего лета.

Основные культивируемые сорта: Green Anjou, Red Anjou, Bartlett, Red Bartlett, Bosc, Comice, Forelle, Starkrimson.

Калифорнийская комиссия столового винограда

Членами ассоциации являются более 500 производителей столового калифорнийского винограда. Сезон сбора калифорнийского столового винограда начинается в мае.

Благодаря самым современным технологиям хранения различные сорта калифорнийского винограда, с косточками и без, в продаже до января. В Калифорнии производится более 70 сортов винограда трех цветов.

Контактная информация

Для организации встреч на выставке World Food Moscow обращайтесь, пожалуйста, к нашим сотрудникам:

Западная Россия: Ксения Евдокимова, +7(812) 702-7151, ksenia@crispconsulting.agency

Восточная Россия: Катерина Акуленко, katerina@newmark.ru