Russian food market research

Apples from Moldova dominate at the Russian market

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Nowadays apples from Moldova dominate at the Russian market. This situation is extremely unprofitable for Polish growers, because export apple prices and prices at the domestic market depend on the export volume to the CIS countries.

Russian importers prefer buying cheaper production, despite qualitative packing, graduation and homogeneity of Polish apples.

At the Moscow market prices on apples from Moldova vary within 23-24 rubles per kg, while apples from Poland cost about 33-34 rubles per kg.

Source: www.fruitnews.ru

Russia: less import of traditional vegetables.

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Russia encourages foreign producers of traditional fresh fruit and vegetables for the sum of $5 milliards annually. This is the exact amount of fresh produce in monetary equivalent that is imported to the country, although such traditional vegetables as potatoes, cabbage and onions can be cultivated in the Russian climatic conditions. This evaluation of the industry was given by Tatyana Ghetman, head of Fruit-Inform Project, at the 4th International conference “Fruit & Vegetable Business of Russia – 2011” (in the frameworks of the World Food Moscow 2011, 13-16 September).

‘Russian growers have to develop their business in a very inhospitable environment: bank loans which are still difficult to access, annual growth of production expenses, and competition with imported production which intensifies gradually’, says Tatyana Ghetman.

Also, the expert remarked that according to all prerequisites, Russia will import very little due to the expected growth of its own production of the regular crops.

‘It is expected that we are going to reap an enormous harvest of potatoes, cabbage and onions this year. Taking into consideration the record low prices on the whole range of vegetables now and boom of storehouse construction across Russia and in neighboring countries, it is obvious that industry holders will face the only challenge of how not to suffer losses during the current season. And we are not touching upon the possibility of making money on storing’, Ghetman concluded.

Source: www.rgsco.ru

European suppliers will challenge Ukraine at the Russian apple market

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Last year was rather harvestless in Europe, that’s why some other suppliers, such as Ukraine, got the opportunity to establish themselves as leaders at the market. This year Europe is expecting the heavy crop of high quality apples, the competition will be more severe, and import from Europe will grow again.

This forecast was made by Tatiana Geldman, head of the project “APK-inform: fruit and vegetables”, within the framework of the international conference “Fruit and vegetable business in Russia 2011”/World Food Moscow. According to the expert, Russian production will grow 4—5%, that will be achieved by means of new gardens.

Source: www.fruitnews.ru

Situation at the Russian fruit market

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Russian market grows approximately 15% a year. Mostly it happens by means of fruit import. The most important factors influencing the market dynamics are the fruit prices and the human wellbeing. Other factors are the growing nutrition culture and fashion on healthy life style.

The most important Russian fruit are apples. The apple harvest in Russia is going to be good this year, 4% more than last year, but Russian apples will be hardly preserved until the new year. Apples come to Russia from more than 40 countries, but the main suppliers are Poland and China. In volume terms the part of apples and pears in the total import volume makes more than 28%. After apples and pears come citrus (26.5%) and bananas (19%). Experts note that the apple import is growing particularly fast from China. A large amount of apples also come from Poland, and pears mostly come from Argentina and Belgium.

During the last 10 years the citrus volume at the domestic Russian market has grown from 471 861 tons to 1 480 695 tons. Last year the total cost of the citrus market in Russia has made 1.2 milliard dollars. This year this index is not likely to change a lot.

Experts notice that the demand on tangerines, oranges, grapefruit and lemons is growing because of the improvement in the social living standard and because of the increasing of fresh fruit sales volumes in the supermarkets.

Tangerines are the most popular citrus in Russia, and their sales volumes cede only to bananas and apples. The demand on lemons and limes is more or less stable, and the popularity of grapefruit has been growing since the year 2005. The main citrus suppliers in Russia are Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, RSA and China.

Bananas are also very popular in Russia. Every Russian consumes approximately 4.5—5 kilos of bananas a year. According to the Russian importers, the high level of banana consumption is due to low prices (not more than 1 dollar per kg). The main supplier is Ecuador (90%). Other banana suppliers are Columbia, Costa-Rica, Panama and the Philippines.

The most important suppliers of grapes to the Russian market are Uzbekistan—45% and Turkey—16%.

The most popular exotic fruit in Russia is pineapple. It makes 70% of all the exotic fruit.
The least popular are pitaya, litchee, starfruit, durian and rambutan. Exotic fruit make 3 % of the cost of all the fruit import.

The most popular formats for fruit sales are wholesale centers and markets. About 70% of all the fruit are sold there. The prices are usually lower at the markets than in the supermarkets. Also consumers think the quality of fruit is better at the markets.

However, experts suppose that the consumption of fruit in supermarkets will grow, because the consumers can combine the purchase of fruit with acquisition of other goods in order to save time.

Source: www.fruitnews.ru

The export of citrus to the Russian Federation for the season 2010/11 has made $100 million.

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High citrus demand in Russia has allowed Pakistan to earn more than $100 million on tangerine export for the season 2010/2011.

Citrus import to Russia has grown 29% in the first months of the year 2011 and has made almost 1.5 million tons.

Ahmad Jawad, the Harvest Tradings executive director, said that “Russia is able to import as many citrus as Pakistan is able to export”, and has appealed to building of confidential relationship with the Russian importers.

Pakistan cultivates 185 thousand hectares of citrus plantations. Its annual production volume is 2.1 million tons, that makes this country the 13-th largest citrus exporter in the world.

Source: www.lol.org.ua

The import growth rates, according to the Federal Customs Service

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The Federal Customs Service has published the information about the import from far abroad to Russia in August 2011. In general the situation hasn’t changed—from the beginning of the year 2010 the amount of import to Russia is growing. During the last 8 months import in terms of value has made $165.4 milliard, and this is 42 % more than for the same period in the year 2010.

However, the comparison of the last index with the data of the Federal Customs Service for the previous months leads to the conclusion of the growth retardation—from 48% (in the terms of the year) in January—June of the year 2011 to 43 % in June—July and 42 % in January—August. This firm tendency can hardly be called unexpected—the import growth had been extremely high on the back of the rather sluggish growth of the home demand.

Only in August of the year 2011 the import amount from the far abroad has made $24.6 milliard against $19.4 milliard in August of the last year. The growth is 27%.

The food import in comparison with other groups of goods shows the decreasing growth rates. If in May 2011 there was imported food totaling to $3.77 milliard, in August –only $2.49 milliard. The purchasing (from August to August) of cereal-crops and oil has grown 72%, vegetables—26%, fish and beef—19 %. However, the import of poultry meat has decreased 12 %, dairy products—7%, tobacco—4%.

Source: www.tks.ru

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

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

Crisis in Russian market for imported fruits

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According to Fruit-Inform Project, sales of imported fruits are rather difficult in Russia in the current season. As of today, wholesale prices for bananas and citrus fruits are on average 2 times lower than a year before that, nevertheless, enables sales to increase only slightly.

Partially such a situation is observed due to importers’ overestimates of sales volumes in summer, as they were based on volumes of last year and the first half of 2011 when prices were high and demand was traditionally exceeding all expectations. However, the demand for imported citrus fruits, bananas and exotics sharply fell in July this year when the supply of cheap domestic vegetables started rapidly growing in the Russian market and early August when the market began to be supplied with local melons, watermelons and fruit.

Source: www.dp.ru

Russia is becoming the world leader in citrus import

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According to a USDA (Foreign Agricultural Service by the Department of Agriculture of US) study, citrus is the second most popular fruit in Russia, following the apple.

From 2000 when 471,861 metric tons (MT) of citrus got into the country the import rose to 1,480,695 MT in 2010, a year when the market value for citrus in Russia was around 1.2 billions.

On the other hand, statistic data from the Statistic Committee of the Russian Federation indicates that, in 2010, the consumption per capita of citrus was of 7.3kg, meaning some 20% more than in 2008.

“The market is far from saturated, it has a very good potential for expansion”, concludes the report. Main citrus suppliers of the Russian market are Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and China.

Source: www.freshplaza.com