Over the past two weeks, wholesale prices for apples of the Golden and Golden Delicious varieties have been dynamically growing in Moldova. If at the beginning of the last decade of October traders paid an average of 5.5 MDL/kg ($0.31/kg), then last week at 7 MDL/kg($ 0.4 /kg). At the beginning of the current week prices for high quality apples of Golden Delicious variety were shipped from cold storage facilities to Russian supermarket chains and importers at 10.5 MDL/kg ($0.57-0.60/kg). Apples had to be sorted, large size and packed in the cartons.. The price level is already comparable (and even slightly higher for high-quality products) with the average and maximum prices for apples of the mentioned varieties in the first half of November last year.
But managers of large horticultural and commercial enterprises believe that analogies with last year’s situation are not correct. In their opinion, at the end of October – beginning of November 2021, we can rather talk about an abnormal situation in the apple market of the Russian Federation. Moreover, most likely it is connected with some kind of failure in the usual system of supplying high-quality imported apples to the Russian market. Traders associate this failure with the termination for political reasons of supplies of Polish apples to the Belarusian market, and through it – to the Russian market. In such a situation, Russian wholesalers and retailers are urgently looking for a replacement, Moldovan suppliers of quality apples of certain varieties are one of the options.
However, according to the Moldovan traders themselves, the window of opportunity for them did not open for long – for maximum two or three weeks. During this period, the Polish apple may come to the Russian market through Serbian channels. Or a cheap Ukrainian apple will start to arrive in Russia through Belarus. One way or another, but until the end of November, according to traders, high price volatility is possible in the Russian market for imported apples, then the situation will stabilize.
However, experts of some trading companies drew attention to the fact that players of the European apple market made short-term attempts to raise prices back in September. They associate such intentions with a noticeable rise in the cost of production resources and materials – fuels and plant protection products, in the first place, as well as with logistical difficulties – a shortage of containers for sea transportation.
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