The blueberry season has begun in Poland and Ukraine, the two largest producing and exporting countries of this berry in Eastern Europe. In Georgia, the season has nearly ended – the last batches are being sold on the market. Before the start of the season, there were many pessimistic price forecasts, given the rapid growth in the area under blueberries and grim macroeconomic situation.
Therefore, EastFruit analysts have prepared an overview of the blueberry market in Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. It should be noted that in the countries of Central Asia, blueberries are still very expensive exotics and are almost not grown and known. Some first commercial projects are now being developed but it is not nearly the same as the blueberry craze in Ukraine. In Moldova blueberry area remains relatively small and is not growing much as, for some reason, local farmers believe that climatic conditions for blueberries in Moldova are not right. On the other hand, Ukraine, Poland and Georgia continue increasing production and exports of blueberrues.
Weather conditions, production volumes and quality
Despite the rather cold and rainy spring of 2023, producers in all countries noted that their blueberry season began on schedule, primarily due to the normalization of weather conditions in the second half of May and June 2023. In addition, new plantations of this berry came into fruition in all countries, which made it easy to forecast an increase in the blueberry harvest in the whole region. Also, at the moment there is no reason to assume deviations in the quality of blueberries from the usual situation. Therefore, record blueberry harvest is expected in the region.
Ukraine
The current blueberry season in Ukraine started on schedule, in the last days of June 2023. Most blueberry producers did not hide the fact that they expect an increase in the yield of berries.
Over the past week, blueberry prices have literally collapsed, confirming the fears of market participants. At the moment, the average prices for blueberries in Ukraine are equivalent to $3.4 per kg, although the previous record low price at this time of the year was $6 per kg in 2019. In other words, prices for blueberries in Ukraine are already almost two times lower than usual during this period of the year, and by the end of the week they may drop even more. In 2022, by the way, blueberry prices in Ukraine were almost three times higher.
With a high probability blueberry price in Ukraine will beat the record lows of 2022. Then the prices fell to the level of $2.4-2.5 per kg at the wholesale level. In 2023 the price is expected to drop below this level, and in it is likely to happen soon. This will allow Ukrainian freezers to shock-freeze first volumes of cultivated blueberries as previously these berries were to expensive to be considered for freezing.
Will Ukrainian blueberry producers be able to survive and continue to developing their business at such low prices, and how can this be done? Evgen Kharlan, Development Director of Nikdariya LLC, shared his opinion on this matter in an interview for the EastFruit portal where he believes that the way out will be to improve the quality of grown products and consolidate the business.
Farmer Igor Baranivsky, who grows blueberries on the relatively small area, but focuses on high quality and cultivation efficiency, believes that in the next 5 years we will most likely see a significant uprooting of blueberry plantations planted on hype and an unprofessional assessment of the effectiveness of investments in this crop in Ukraine.
Poland
Presently Poland remains the undisputed leader in the production and export of blueberries among the analyzed countries. Over the past five years, Poland has rapidly increased its blueberry exports, from over 15 thousand tons in 2018 to 26.8 thousand tons in 2022. The main market for blueberries from Poland remains neighboring Germany, where the consumption of this berry continues to grow. In addition, it is Polish exporters who actively buy blueberries in Ukraine and resell them further to the EU countries.
Polish berry producers approached this season very cautiously. The kept telling the press about the terrible frosts and a cold spring, which would cause a significant decrease in blueberry yields in Poland. However, as May and June of this year showed, not everything turned out to be so critical, and EastFruit analysts suggest that another increase in the blueberry harvest will be recorded in Poland in 2023. Moreover, it is not excluded that the exports of blueberries from Poland will also grow significantly.
However, this will also be possible only through a further reduction in the prices of blueberries. Despite the fact that the blueberry harvesting season starts in Poland a little later than in Ukraine, prices here have already been lowered to almost the same level as in Ukraine. At the moment, according to our analysts, the wholesale price for blueberries in Poland is $3.5 per kg, which is already much lower than last year’s $4.8/kg. Therefore, Polish farmers are anxiously monitoring price dynamics and discussing strategies for diversifying exports and finding more profitable marketing channels.
By the way, this may become an additional problem for Ukraine – after all, in the conditions of an excess of locally produced berries, many Polish intermediaries could refuse to purchase Ukrainian blueberries, which will put even more pressure on the prices in Ukraine.
Moldova
As of today, the wholesale prices for blueberries in Moldova remain at the highest level among all the countries under consideration, primarily due to the relatively low domestic production of blueberries. Generally speaking, Moldova remains the champion in domestic prices for blueberries, striving in every possible way to limit its imports and often, quite unreasonably, claiming “price dumping” by Ukraine.
Even now farmers in Moldova manage to sell blueberries for more than $8 per kg. Such wholesale price is even higher than in 2022 at the same time! In Ukraine blueberries now can be purchased for one third of that price.
Naturally, next week the Moldovan market will be full of blueberries from Ukraine, and prices on the domestic market will be much lower. It is also worth noting that attempts to keep prices at a high level Moldova lead to consumption of blueberries in Moldova being the lowest of all countries in the region.
Georgia
Blueberry prices in Georgia are now even higher than previously expected. First of all, the season is almost over, and blueberry exports have exceeded all records many times over, as we recently reported in this article. Secondly, in recent days it has been raining in the production regions of Georgia, which made harvesting impossible and led to a temporary decrease in the supply of berries. However, prices for blueberries in Georgia are now lower than in Ukraine and Poland – about $2.7 per kg, which is also slightly lower than a year earlier. At the same time, the price after the resumption of harvesting may decrease slightly.
Alas, Georgia remains highly dependent on the most volatile market in the world – Russia. At least 93% of all fresh blueberries grown in the country are sent to Russian Federation. With prices being already very low, potential closure of the Russian market might mean serious problems for growers.
According to the Georgian Association of Blueberry Producers, as of July 10, up to 80% of blueberries have already been harvested, and this year local producers have every chance to cross the mark of 3,000 tons. Most of the blueberry crop will be exported as domestic market is rather small.
Netherlands
The trends in the country, which is the main blueberry market in the EU, seem very interesting, because they resell record volumes of these berries. It is in the Netherlands that the main volumes of off-season berries come from Peru and Chile, as well as at the beginning of the season from countries such as Morocco and Spain. At the same time, the Netherlands has a relatively high level of domestic consumption of blueberries, and local farmers actively grow blueberries themselves as well.
Local producers agree that in 2023, the average blueberry crop loss in the country, due to the cold spring, will be up to 20%. Another important fact of the current blueberry market season in the Netherlands is the first decline in blueberry acreage in many years, after a gradual increase in production capacity over the past decade.
According to local market participants, the blueberry prices no longer cover the costs of production and harvesting, so many farmers prefer to uproot existing berry plantations and switch to growing more profitable crops. Here it should be noted that it is Peru, Chile, Morocco, as well as Poland and Ukraine that contribute to the fact that the cultivation of blueberries in the Netherlands ceases to be profitable.
Conclusions
According to EastFruit experts, in the next two years area under blueberries in the EU-15 countries and even in Poland and Ukraine, may begin to decline due to consistently low prices. This will already allow, at least for some time, to increase average prices for blueberries to a more acceptable level for the most efficient growers. However, this will of course take time. In the meanwhile, price forecasts for the current season remain rather bearish.
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