According to experts from fruit growing organizations in Moldova, by mid-January 2024, at least 130-135 thousand tons of fresh apples from last year’s harvest remained in the storage facilities of agricultural producers and traders. As EastFruit experts report, the apple sales in the winter of the current season have been rather slow.
EastFruit reported earlier that in December 2023, only 7.5 thousand tons of fresh apples were exported from Moldova – the lowest December export figure in the recent five years. At the same time, according to retailers, apple sales in winter are still low since its retail price is very high for Moldova’s consumer and reaches 1 euro/kg. This makes prices of bananas and citrus fruits more attractive and consumers are buying more of these fruits on expense of apples.
Read also: How Moldova’s apple industry fares in MY 2023/24: review and outlook
At the same time, the Moldova Fruct Association notes that since mid-January 204, exports of Moldovan apples to Romania and some other EU countries, the UK and the Persian Gulf countries have been gradually increasing. Nevertheless, representatives of the association think that it is not impossible that some of the apples currently in on stocks will end up being sold to processors. These would mostly be apples of outdated varieties or these, which have quality issues. Luckily, prices for industrial apples remain rather strong supported by high prices of apple juice concentrate.
Two years ago in the spring, about 40 thousand tons of apples from Moldova’s storage facilities ended up at processing factories as farmers were unable to find buyers for these apples.
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