Russian Fruit Market

Russia imports of mandarin and grapefruit on the increase

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Russian citrus imports rose by 6% last year compared to 2012. The markets for mandarin and grapefruit in particular show high growth rates, respectively 40% and 34%, reports the Russian website fruitnews.ru. Turkey and Morocco traditionally are the two main citrus suppliers, but have to surrender a part of their market share to South Africa and Egypt. A striking newcomer on the mandarin market is Georgia.

Russia imported 1.7 million tons in 2013, accounting for 1.68 billion dollars. An increase of 6% compared to the year before. The main suppliers of citrus are Turkey and Morocco, accounting for 40% of the total volume. Egypt is third, followed by South Africa and China. The first EU country on the list is Spain occupying the sixth place. Cyprus and Greece are good for respectively the eleventh and twelfth place.

Mandarins and oranges are the most popular citrus fruits amongst the Russian consumers. Last year Russia imported more than 838,000 tons, accounting for almost half of the total citrus import. The largest mandarin suppliers are Turkey and Morocco. Although the volume from Morocco decreased compared to the previous years, the volume from Turkey grew. Together both countries account for half the mandarin supply. Other major suppliers are China, Pakistan, Spain, Argentina and Abkhazia. In October 2013 Georgia was allowed to supply the Russian market and ended up twelfth on the list with 12,000 tons.

Oranges were mainly imported from Egypt and South Africa. Volumes grew to 70% of the import. In total Russia imported 500,000 tons of oranges. Other major suppliers of oranges were Turkey, Spain and Morocco.

Grapefruit import grew by 20% compared with 2012 to 147,000 tons. The largest supplier of this citrus fruit is China, followed by Turkey, South Africa and Israel. The rise in consumption is due to media attention.

In the first quarter of this year, import fell by 11% to 577,000 ton. Key suppliers are Morocco, turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, China and Spain. New comer Georgia exported 2.6 tons of mandarins to Russia.

Expressed as a percentage, the market share of the export countries is stable. Turkey is on top of the list with 24.6%, followed by Morocco (14.5%) and Egypt (14.1%). In recent years the import of mandarins increased by almost 40% from 605,000 tons in 2010 to 838,000 tons in 2013. The import of grapefruit is also on the rise, growing 34%. In 2010 109,000 tons was imported, in 2013 it rose to 147,000 tons

The orange import grew with 5% from 478,000 tons in 2011 to 504,000 tons in 2013. The volumes from Egypt and South Africa are growing at the expense of Morocco and Turkey.

www.freshplaza.com

Belgorod Oblast to produce 1 mln tons of apples a year

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The Russian region of Belgorod is expected to produce one million tonnes of apples per year; a third of the Russian demand for this fruit. The head of Belgorod Oblast’s Department of Agriculture, Stanislav Aleynik, pointed out that last year, according to the Federal Customs Service, Russia imported $ 6.2 billion worth of fruits and berries, 40% of which could have been grown in Russia.

“After joining the WTO in 2012, customs tariffs have significantly fallen, so the volume of apple imports increased,” said Stanislav Aleynik. “Thus, Russian buyers are investing more than 500 million Euro in the development of foreign economies.”

According to officials, this is due to lack of domestic product in the market, but the situation can change. In the Belgorod region, the gross apple harvest last year reached 47,000 tonnes. More than half of the large companies have expanded and the average yield has improved with the growth of intensive orchards, where it is possible to grow 40 tonnes of apples per hectare.

Stanislav Aleynik noted that, in the future, depending on the number of trees planted per hectare, there will be three planting schemes, each needing a different investment and generating different levels of revenue. With the maximum density (2.5 thousand apple trees per hectare), the cost would be of 2.9 million Roubles, but within three years, when the trees begin to provide a stable yield, the net profit would be of 785 thousand Roubles per hectare.

However, the head of the Russian Association of Growers and CEO of a large Belgorod company, Victor Gorodov, noted that the main issue would be where to get so much quality planting material. According to Stanislav Aleynik, to achieve Belgorod’s goals the region would need an additional 27 million seedlings, and a lot of money.

However, Victor also believes that agriculture in Russia is easier than ever, as the technology has already been implemented. Besides, if we talk about the Belgorod region, the unique soils allow local fruit producers to compete with Western growers.

www.fruit-inform.com

Russia: wide apple price range in Moscow

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The apple price range was rather wide in Moscow on May 23: 0.61-1.37 euro/kg, depending on variety and country of origin.

Polish apples traditionally were the least expensive. Wholesale companies offered those apples at 0.65-0.87 euro/kg with the demand for them being moderate.

Apples of Spanish, French, Chilean and South African origin were offered as a premium category at 1.17-1.37 euro/kg.

It should be noted that prices of imported apples were significantly higher last year: 0.81-1.77 euro/kg. A year-on-year decrease in apple prices is connected with rather low demand for apples in the global market now.

www.fruit-inform.com

Russia doubles strawberry imports in March

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This year’s latest figures show that Russia has imported a large quantity of strawberries during the month of March, which have been devoted to the local market. This volume doubles the amount imported in February 2014.

Over 5,000 tonnes of strawberries were shipped to the Russian market in March, which more than doubles the volume purchased in February, which was of 2,000 tonnes. Russia’s main strawberry supplier was the European Union, which accounted for 83% of the shipments. Egypt stood second, followed in third place by China.

www.freshplaza.com

Pesticide nitrates are detected in 600 tons of fruits and vegetables in Russia

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According to the latest data, Russian toxic substance control service has examined more than 600 tons of fruits and vegetables imported to the domestic market. Due to inspection results, violations of standards were detected in 27 lots of fruits including 120 tons of tomatoes, 120 tons of marrows and 220 tons of apples. The acceptable nitrates level was several times exceeded. Most of low quality products were delivered from Turkey and Poland.

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Russian growers do not plan to raise apple prices until end of season

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The majority of Russian apple farms have already reported of the finish of the season with the rest offering remaining volumes.

In view of that, growers do not plan to revise apple prices to sell their stocks as soon as possible as the quality of apples is sharply decreasing now.

For the present, apple prices in Russia still vary between RUB 22-27/kg (EUR 0.41-0.51/kg), depending on variety. Price levels in the same period of the previous season were similar to current ones.

www.fruit-inform.com

Russia: cold spell does not affect apple orchards

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Air temperature in the majority of regions of Krasnodar Krai decreased to 4-5 degrees below zero on the night of March 30th/31st.

On the previous day the Press Service of Southern Regional Center of the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defense, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters said about probability of emergency situations connected with damages and losses of agricultural crops (flowers and sets of early stonefruit and pomaceous fruit crops, potato plants) as well as heat-loving plants.

According to Fruit-Inform data, such a sharp fall in temperature negatively affected stonefruit plantations in Krasnodar Krai, but had almost no impact on apple orchards. Local growers say of apples to start blossoming at least in a week. Before that, a cold spell does not constitute a serious danger for apples, as a decrease in temperature is critical during the periods of budding and blossoming.

www.fruit-inform.com

Devaluation of the Rouble hampers fruit export to Russia

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Although Crimea no longer dominates the daily news, it has affected fruit export. “I think that the political situation cost volume and also price development,” said fruit exporter Kees Oskam from Vleuten. “But I’m actually happy that we can simply still deliver at these prices. It could be worse.”

“Of course we would have preferred higher prices, but the Rouble has almost halved in value and that plays an important role. There are region’s to which we can no longer export because it is too expensive. In Moscow and the surrounding areas that is not the case because the average income is higher.” Trading company Jan Oskam traditionally export top fruit to The Ukraine, but even there devaluation of the Hryvna has caused problems.

“It is a daily priority to see if we can export. I have to say last week was more difficult than this week, maybe because it was still front page news. Obviously we are talking to receivers who are equally concerned to keep trade moving,” said the trader.

“The fact that the pear price is unstable on the Russian market makes for a tricky situation because the market is and remains unpredictable,” concluded Kees. “Only a few apples go to Russia here and there, because Polish exporters have cornered the market with their lower prices, but they also complain a lot about difficulties they have with supplies from Serbia.”

www.freshplaza.com

Russian fruit & vegetable imports saw continued growth in 2013

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The Russian import market of fresh fruit and vegetables in 2013 was worth 8.2 billion dollars (6.2 billion Euro). Two years before it was 7.7 billion dollars. In 2011 and 2012 the value was 5.5 and 6.0 billion Euro respectively. Volume comparisons show last year figures at 8.4 million ton, compared to 8 in 2012 and 8.3 in 2011. Previous years showed imports increasing sharply.

Apples and bananas are the two major products which are imported to Russia. Apple import continued to grow in 2013 but banana import was more modest. Tomatoes, the third import product showed good growth as did fourth place, soft citrus, then a number of products follow which reached a peak in 2011 but in recent years have fallen, these are oranges, pears, grapes and carrots. Onion import in 2013 was also seen to have been previously higher.

Ecuador is the most important supplier of fresh fruit and vegetables. This is mostly due to the banana. Ecuadorian bananas have a free monopoly on the Russian banana market. Turkey is the other massive supplier of fresh fruit and vegetables to Russia but import is not longer growing. Poland is rising as third supplier. Almost three quarters of Polish deliveries consists of apples. China follows in fourth place but their import shows a falling trend and apples, soft citrus and tomatoes are their most important products. Spanish import, number 5, has stabilised after a short spurt in 2013. The main Spanish products going to Russia are peaches/nectarines and tomatoes. Morocco also supply soft citrus, and Israel are a large supplier of products such as carrots and peppers.

www.freshplaza.com

Russian apple prices lower year-on-year

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The Russian apple market participants say about stagnation in the sector.

For the present, many apple growers have already finished their season. Still selling farmers do not revise prices in view of stably low demand for apples and often low quality of offered produce.

As a result, growers’ apple prices vary between RUB 15-30/kg (EUR 0.27-0.55/kg), depending on quality and production region. It should be reminded that in the mid-March 2013 domestic apples were offered at RUB 0.31/kg and higher.

As regards imported apples, the demand for them also remains extremely low, and prices are still stable.

www.fruit-inform.com