The Russian AJC (apple juice concentrate) market situation is rather difficult for domestic manufacturers. Abundant supply of domestic AJC and lack of sales channels are the main problems faced by them. In addition, AJC imports (mainly from China, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Iran) are rather high.
At the same time, processors rarely revise their prices. The price decrease is registered in isolated cases and does not improve the situation.
For the present, prices vary between at 1.10-1.20 euro/kg.
Interfood 2014
March 19-21, 2014
St. Petersburg, Russia
Interfood international specialised exhibition is being held annually since 1997, and over the decades it has become one of the leading food industry events in Russia and the biggest in North-West of Russia. Each April, it gets together advanced and professional companies of the industry, contributing to their development and promotion. The key goal of this trade show is to contribute to provide Russian buyers with the high-quality products from domestic and international producers.
InterFood is:
For more information see: www.infoodspb.ru
Ingredients Russia 2014
March 18-21, 2014
Moscow, Russia
Ingredients Russia is a specialised exhibition for ingredients suppliers and consumers from around the world.
For the past sixteen years, the Ingredients Russia exhibition has reflected trends in the industry. Developers, manufacturers and suppliers of raw materials and ingredients for the food industry prepare innovative products specifically for presentation at the exhibition.
More than 7000 industry professionals visit the exhibition in search of new ingredients to improve product quality, create new products, and improve production cost-effectiveness.
For more information see: www.ingred.ru
Russian parliamentarians will submit to the State Duma a bill, which severely restricts imports of genetically modified agricultural products, and completely banning their domestic production, RT reports.
This bill is an amendment to the existing law “On Safety and Quality of Alimentary Products”, which sets norms for the maximum content of transgenic and genetically modified components in food. The powers to establish that norm, go to the government and products with excessive content of GMO components should be banned for turnover and imports.
Evgeny Fyodorov, the author of the bill and a member of the United Russia party, said that it does not suppose a total ban on imports of genetically modified products, but imposes government’s control on it. He adds that the draft law will be introduced to the State Duma for viewing in two weeks.
The head of Russia’s Organic Farming Union, Yakov Lyubovedsky, believes that the passing of the bill would show if the Duma can defend the country’s independence and the interests of population. He also added that GMO was an experiment on humanity itself and that the industry could do very well without genetically-enhanced plants and animals.
He also noted that the limitations would create a threat of uncontrolled and dangerous spread of illegal genetically modified crops.
The bill will be submitted to the State Duma in two weeks’ time and its authors claim that its chances of passing are very high.
Kevin Moffitt with Pear Bureau Northwest recently spent some time talking about the challenges to marketing the northwest pear crop.
“The first issue is the fact that pears are just not on people’s list. Not everybody is buying pears. They’re an impulse item with just a small but solid core group that is buying most of the fruit sold,” said Moffitt.
In a list of top fruit items sold in the U.S. apples come in at the number one spot but pears don’t make the top 10 at number 11.
Less than 50% of consumers buy pears in any given year. In addition to that 35% of pear purchasers are buying 90% of the pears sold.
“Those that do buy pears they tend to buy only 7 times per year,” Moffitt added. “So while we’ll continue to nurture those heavy pear purchasers one key objective is to move those medium pear purchasers up slightly.”
Lenta, one of the major Russian grocery retailers, increased its total sales by 31.3% year on year to RUB 144.3bn (€3.03bn) in 2013, according to the company’s IFRS financial report. At the same time, the LFL sales grew by 10%.
What is more, there was a 35% increase in the retail space of the Russian hypermarket retailer Lenta in 2013, and the company has become the most rapidly growing business in this arena among the largest grocery retailers in Russia.
At the end of last year Lenta’s retail space came to 508,000 m² and the company had 87 stores in total. The retailer has opened 31 stores, including 10 supermarkets in Moscow and the Moscow Province. It operates 77 hypermarkets in 45 cities in Russia.
Lenta’s main shareholders are the American investment fund TPG (49.8%), the EBRD (21.5%) and VTB Capital (11.7%). In early February the retailer announced that it intended to enter the London Stock Exchange and the Moscow Exchange by means of IPOs.
In the first half of the current season, Russia has reduced imports of grapes to the lowest level over the past 5 years, according to Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation.
In particular, in July-December 2013, Russian importers purchased 237,000 tons of grapes, 17% lower than in the same period of the previous season, when imports had amounted to at 285,000 tons.
A decrease in total imports is connected with 10% smaller volumes of grapes imported from Turkey.
The Russian Federation keeps on reducing apple imports, according to the official statistics.
In particular, imports in December 2013 stood at 117,000 tons, a decrease of 6% year-on-year.
Russia’s cumulative imports in the first 6 months of the season 2013/14 totalled 466,000 tons, a decrease of 11% compared with the same period of the previous season, when imports had reached record high 524,000 tons.
Thanks to an increase of 13% in exports, Moldova was the largest supplier of apples to the Russian Federation in the first half of the current season. Poland, Serbia and China also were the key exporters.
Russia’s biggest food retailer, Magnit, reported on Monday a 35-percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit to $361.9 million, beating expectations.
Analysts, polled by Reuters, forecast on average a $319 million net profit.
X5 Retail Group NV posted the strongest quarterly sales growth in two years as it closed the gap on competitors including OAO Magnit and O’Key Group SA.
Fourth-quarter sales rose 12 percent to 150 billion rubles ($4.4 billion), benefiting from an improved product assortment and promotional activity, the Moscow-based grocer said today in a statement. That compares with growth of 6.6 percent in the previous three months.
The increase in sales beat the 8 percent estimate of VTB Capital, sending the shares up as much as 7.1 percent.
“This is surprising given that Magnit, O’Key and M.video reported a slowdown in fourth-quarter sales, citing weakening consumer spending,” VTB Capital analyst Ivan Kushch said.
While X5’s accelerating sales bucked the trend, the overall growth rate is still the weakest of its main rivals, according to Kushch. “We need to see if the company’s turnaround is sustainable,” he said. “Fourth-quarter growth was largely driven by promotional price declines, which may have hurt profits.”
Magnit, Russia’s biggest retailer, said this month that revenue rose almost 23 percent from a year earlier in December, less than November’s 29 percent growth. O’Key also reported weaker growth, while electronics retailer M.video said same-store sales declined in the fourth quarter.
X5 Retail shares rose 4.8 percent to $18.50 at 8:24 a.m. in London, where the stock has its main listing.