The first shipments of Syrian fruits and vegetables, bound, in part, to replace the Turkish products covered by the import ban, have started arriving to Russia, as reported by the importer Adyg-Jurak to the newspaper Kommersant.
“Syrian fruits and Vegetables are already being delivered by Adyg-Jurak to the wholesale and retail firm Food City. Talks are also underway with other large Russian retailers,” informs the magazine.
CEO Aslan Panesz said that last week marked the arrival to the port of Novorossiysk of the second batch of oranges, lemons, grapefruit, tomatoes and cabbage, with a total weight of about 3 thousand tonnes.
During the delivery of the first batch, some problems occurred, as about 1.2 thousand tonnes of food stayed in the port for more than 10 days because of issues in the customs documents, with the result that some of the products spoiled. During the unloading of the second batch, these problems have been solved.
Currently, products are on the shelves of Moscow’s wholesale-retail center Food City and several wholesale centre in the south of Russia.
Russian retailers are also beginning to purchase Syrian fruit and vegetables. In April, Metro Cash&Carry is going to sell Syrian pomegranates (2 MT), cauliflower (4MT), pepper (20 MT), eggplants (10 MT) and eggplants. Since this is the first shipment of fruits and vegetables from Syria, the company imported small volumes for analysis of the demand for these products. According to Metro Cash & Carry representative, the retailer sell 300 MT of fruits and vegetables per day on average.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, since the beginning of the year to March 13, food import from Syria to Russia amounted to $ 2,389, the total amount of deliveries – about 5,000 MT. Food export from Syria to Russia rose by almost 3 times during one year.