According to information received by EastFruit from players in the Russian fruit and vegetable trade, the procedures for importing fresh apples from a number of countries to Russia have become much more complicated this week. They refer to a letter from the Rosselkhoznadzor, which prescribes to carefully check each batch of apples from these countries for exceeding the maximum permissible concentration (MPC) of residues of pesticide substances, including such as Pyrimethanil, Chlorpyrifos and Hexachlorobenzene.
This leads to the fact that trucks and containers with apples are delayed for several days. Accordingly, suppliers incur significant losses and believe that these measures are a form of nontariff barriers to imports in order to support the domestic producer against the background of an excess of apples, described in detail in our material #freshapplecrisis. Considering the delays in deliveries, the Russian apple market “revived” a little. True, the prices for apples on the spot market have not yet risen, but already in deliveries for the next week, Russian supermarket chains take this factor into account and raise the ceiling of the purchase price even for an inexpensive apple. According to market participants, prices are also supported by the lack of re-exports of Polish apples to the Russian market through Belarus.
Moldova is not among the countries included in the conditional “black list”. Perhaps that is why the prices for apples in Moldova began to grow, and even preconditions were outlined for the rise in prices for the apple of the “Idared” variety.
At the moment, the average level of wholesale prices for apples on the Russian market is 10-15% lower than last year, but prices are still significantly higher than in the 2018/19 season.
It is interesting to note that in September 2021 Russia sharply increased its apple imports compared to September 2020, although in August imports were, on the contrary, lower than a year earlier. The main increase in apple exports to Russia in September 2021 was observed precisely from Moldova – supplies doubled and reached 19.4 thousand tonnes. Supplies of Iranian apples increased by 9% to 9 thousand tonnes, while Serbia reduced the exports of apples to Russia in September by 7% to 2.8 thousand tons. By the way, in August-September 2021, supplies of Serbian apples to the Russian Federation were one third lower than in 2020. Turkey, on the other hand, continued to increase its exports – apple exports to Russia in September 2021 were 23% higher than in the same month of 2020.
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