Market News

New Lenta store in Perm

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Saint Petersburg retailer Lenta has opened its new store in Perm on December 25, has said Yana Mogileva, a press agent of the retailer.

Initially the opening of the store was postponed several times due to technical problems.

As far as future plans are concerned, the retailer doesn’t plan to open new stores in Perm prior to 2015.

Today Lenta is present in 44 cities of Russia. The official website of the company states that Lenta stores are opened seven days a week. Also, the retailer offers to its customers products at a price not less than 5% below the average market price. It’s specified that Lenta reduces its costs of warehouse storage by placing some of its commodity stocks in salesrooms.

www.retailer.ru

Magnit sets up transport arm in Hungary

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Russia’s biggest food retailer, Magnit, will set up a transport company in eastern Hungary creating around 1,500 jobs, Hungarian foreign affairs state secretary Peter Szijjarto was quoted as saying on Friday.

National news agency MTI reported Szijjarto as saying that Magnit’s road haulage arm will have a fleet of 1,000 trucks, which will transport foodstuff from European Union member states including Hungary to the retailer’s shops in Russia.

Magnit, earlier this year, overtook rival X5 as Russia’s No.1 grocery chain by revenue.

www.freshplaza.com

Russian retail slips into stagnation

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Russian retail is slipping into a state close to stagnation. Sharp slowdown in business confidence index (BCI) bears evidence of it. BCI has dropped to +3% for the first time in 4.5 years of surveys. Some experts believe that we are witnessing major changes in the driving forces of the Russian economy. Its “artificial engines”, such as retail and financial sector, can’t stimulate the growth anymore.

In concerns of consumers’ demand, it stoped its growth in the last quarter of 2013 and that’s why there can be seen the shift of households from the spending model to the saving one. The situation has worsened by potential consumers’ high debt burden: arrear of Russian credit users by the end of 2013 is about 25% of their aggregate income. As consuming power decreased, retailers’ basic financial rates continued to drop. Experts are also predicting further economic downturn in the beginning of 2014.

Against the background of this economic downturn employment rate remained almost the same.
By statistics trading companies’ revenues in the end of 2013 have shown one of the worst results in past 4 years. In first quarter of 2014 about 20% of entrepreneurs are expecting a revenues decline.
Georgy Ostapkovich, the expert of the Center of conjuncture research, says this negative tendency of market condition cannot be overcome in short run.

www.retailer.ru

Russia may suspend beef imports from Australia

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The Russian veterinary watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor may ban imports of beef from Australia starting January 15 due to the detection of trenbolone, a steroid used to increase muscle growth in livestock, which is banned in Russia.

“The Australian veterinary service has time before January 15 to review the lists of suppliers to Russia and exclude those using trenbolone from them,” Rosselkhoznadzor chief Sergei Dankvert told Interfax. “If this is not done and the Australian veterinary service continues to simply sign veterinary certificates, we will have to limit beef imports from all enterprises that are on the list of suppliers to Russia,” Dankvert said. This measure will primarily concern suppliers of chilled beef, which is considered a higher-risk product, he said.

What makes the situation more complicated is that, in addition to trenbolone-containing meat discovered earlier, new such cases have been revealed lately, Dankvert said. “In addition to two companies that were earlier found to export meat containing the growth stimulant, two more have joined now,” Dankvert said, adding that beef imports from Australia are under Rosselkhoznadzor’s special control.

“The enterprises caught [on using trenbolone] will be deprived of the right to ship meat to Russia, but if such discoveries become massive, protection measures will be different,” he said.

Australia is among major beef suppliers to Russia. The list of beef exporters includes 47 enterprises, and imports to Russia from 8 of them have been banned for various reasons.

www.interfax.com

Рождественский концерт в Спасо Хаусе

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18 декабря в Спасо Хаусе, резиденции посла США, прошел рождественский концерт Виртуозов Москвы, дирижер Владимир Спиваков.

Гости могли насладится прекрасной музыкой в чудесной праздничной атмосфере, а также каждый получил небольшой рождественский подарок от Бюро по грушам США, Вашингтонской яблочной комиссии и Комитета по продвижению клюквы США.

 

Груши США www.usapears.ru

Яблоки штата Вашингтон www.bestapples.ru

Клюква США www.us-klukva.ru

U.S. dried Cranberries added to USDA school foodservice list

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In collaboration with the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, the U.S. Cranberry Marketing Committee (CMC) and industry representatives announced on friday news from USDA Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack. Effective July 2014, schools will have the option to purchase dried cranberries from the Foods Available List (FAL) as part of the USDA foodservice procurement program. Previously, only cranberry sauce had been available.

FAL is the USDA resource list of commodity food products. The list has been modified extensively in recent years with the goal to improve the nutritional options available to the nation’s school children. As a result of new guidelines, dried fruits, including cranberries, are creditable. Dried fruit credit at twice its volume, providing the equivalent of ½ cup of fruit in school breakfast and lunch for every ¼ cup served.

With a projected record-breaking crop for 2013, the USDA news comes at an auspicious time for a market hungry for new opportunities to promote U.S.-grown cranberries.

Next steps for the cranberry industry will be to engage in outreach efforts to educate and work with school foodservice professionals toward cranberry usage. Said Scott J. Soares, Executive Director, “In addition to being healthy to eat, cranberries are incredibly versatile in cooking applications. In July, we unveiled five foodservice-friendly recipes in our School Lunch Toolkit that were very well received by school foodservice professionals and marked the start of our work to ‘cran’-hance school meals.”

www.freshplaza.com

Stagnating Russian apple market

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The Russian apple market is still characterized by rather low consumption activity. For the present, apples are purchased mainly by retail chains, and sales volumes are not high.

Under those conditions and stable imports from Poland, Serbia and other countries, Russian growers are unable to raise prices. For the present, apple prices average 0.43-0.48 euro/kg. Produce of smaller size is shipped at 0.32-0.39 euro/kg. We would remind you that last year prices of domestic apples reached 0.61 euro/kg in the Russian Federation.

Taking into account such a situation, growers keep on holding their apples in storage in the hope of an increase in prices in future.

www.fruit-inform.com

Land considers business in Altay Teritory

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The premium grocery retailer Land is negotiating on the lease of premises in the Plaza shopping centre in Barnaul. The outlet would operate as a Land franchise store. The retailer claims that it has signed a franchise agreement with a Barnaul partner.

Today, Land operates nine stores in St. Petersburg, and another, in Narodnogo Opolchenia Avenue in the city, has been opened on 12 December. The Barnaul launch will represent a totally new regional market for the network.

In 2012 the company’s annual revenues came to RUB 2.5bn (€55m). As PMR reported in November, in 2013 the company expects to boost its revenues by 28-30% year on year, to RUB 3.2bn (€71m), excluding VAT.

www.ceeretail.com

November sales rose by 28.7% for Russian retailer Magnit

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Russia’s biggest food retailer Magnit said on Tuesday its sales rose by 28.7 percent in November, year-on-year, to 50.2 billion roubles ($1.5 billion) after a rise of 27 percent in the previous month.

Magnit, which this year overtook rival X5 as Russia’s No.1 grocery chain by revenue, said the November result brought sales for the first 11 months of the year to 516 billion roubles, up 30 percent on the year.

The company opened 181 stores last month, bringing its total to 7,920. Fast expansion will help it grow revenues by 28-29 percent this year, while next year’s growth is likely to slow to 25-27 percent, the company has said.

www.freshplaza.com

US (WA): Increased productivity makes for another big apple crop

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In the face of decreasing acreage over the last several years, Washington’s apple growers have continually improved productivity. That has helped the state’s growers return another big apple crop this year, which, though it is less than last year’s record-setting crop, is the second-largest crop in state history.

“The crop estimate in August was 120 million bushels, and December’s final estimate was 113 million bushels,” said Todd Fryhover, President of the Washington State Apple Commission. But even after the downward adjustment, 113 million bushels would be the state’s second-largest crop ever, behind last year’s crop of 128 million bushels. Fryhover noted that the trend has been for acreage to go down over the last few years, so two large crops in a row has to do with the gains in productivity that growers have achieved.

“Production keeps going up because growers are doing better with what they have, and they’re more efficient,” said Fryhover. Growers have also leaned on varieties that allow them to be more productive. Fryhover noted that Gala apples have become popular because growers appreciate the relative ease with which they can grow the variety, especially since it’s well adapted to the state’s climate. Another winner has been the Honey Crisp apple, which Fryhover thinks has the potential to double in volume over the next three years. As far as prices, he noted that they have not been on par with those from last year.

“There were crop failures in Michigan and New York last year, so when we had a bumper crop last year there was little fruit coming from the east and we had very good prices despite the volume we had,” said Fryhover. “But with eastern states having record years this season, we have seen a downturn in prices.” But he added that growers with premium quality and good sizes can still do well this year, despite softer prices from increased competition.

“Even with big volumes here and in Pennsylvania and New York, there’s remarkable optimism right now,” said Fryhover. “It’s going to be an okay year; not super and not bad, but adequate.”

www.freshplaza.com