According to the daily monitoring of the EastFruit project, potato prices in Russia have started to decline. Growers tried to keep them at a fairly high level last week, but it became obvious at the beginning of this week that at the established price level, it would be extremely difficult to sell volumes not suitable for long storage before the onset of frost.
At the same time, Russian potato growers complain that they have nowhere to sell their crops. Due to the pandemic, demand from restaurants and cafes fell, and consumers buy less potatoes. Today the range of selling prices for potatoes is 27-38 RUB/kg ($0.38-0.53/kg), which is on average 10% cheaper than at the end of the last work week.
It is worth noting that another factor in reducing the cost of local potatoes was the rather large volumes of imported potatoes in the domestic market. Thus, the main suppliers of imported potatoes today are Belarus and Iran. At the same time, the cost of Iranian potatoes is announced almost at the same level as for local ones – 35-38 RUB/kg ($0.49-0.53/kg). Belarusian potatoes go on sale much cheaper – 25-27 RUB/kg ($0.35-0.38/kg).
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Under the pressure of these factors, Russian potato producers also began to reduce prices, since the country introduced quarantine restrictions until November 7 inclusive, and the sales rate of potatoes began to fall.
Despite the cheapening of potatoes, they are on average 2 times more expensive on the Russian market today than at the beginning of November last year. At the same time, most of the key market players consider the current decline in prices in the potato segment to be a temporary phenomenon, since its yield has slightly decreased in the current season.
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