Stocks of cabbage in Ukrainian farms are already close to depletion, analysts of the EastFruit project report. According to the daily monitoring of the project, prices for cabbage increased by an average of 40% over the past weekend alone and actually reached the highest rates in the history of the country’s independence.

Wholesale batches of Ukrainian cabbage practically do not go on free sale. Producers who still have sufficient volumes are currently unable to deliver systematically. The main reason for this is the break in supply chains and the fact that large volumes of cabbage are in the occupied territories. Due to rush in the domestic market, prices for cabbage are growing almost daily: at the end of last week farms sold cabbage at 14-18 UAH/kg ($0.48-0.62/kg), but today prices have already jumped to 20- 25 UAH/kg ($0.68-0.85/kg). Local wholesale companies immediately began to compensate for the current shortage of local cabbage with imports from Poland.

Read also: Food security and agricultural sector of Ukraine during the war

According to the APK-Inform: Vegetables and Fruits project, to date, wholesale prices for Polish cabbage in Ukraine have formed in the range of 17-20 UAH/kg ($0.58-0.68/kg).

It should be noted that current prices for cabbage in Ukraine are on average 5.8 times higher than in mid-March 2021. The reason for the sharp price rise was the low harvest in Ukraine, when, due to a cold snap in October, a large part of the cabbage crop was lost in the fields, and the quality of harvested cabbage often did not allow long-term storage.

The ongoing devaluation of the Ukrainian currency, due to hostilities in the country, also plays a big role in the growth in prices for fruits and vegetables and cabbage in particular.

Сообщение Cabbage stocks are running out in Ukraine появились сначала на EastFruit.

The Gala apple variety has become dominant in global trade in recent years. The Gala variety has been the leader for about 4 years even in the USA, where the dominance of the Red Delicious variety seemed firm. The variety is also popular in Ukraine, but, according to EastFruit analysts, the replacement of old varieties is too slow. Growers are trying to get the most out of old orchards with outdated varieties such as Idared or Renet Simirenko, despite the enormous difficulties in exporting them.

That is why, the stocks of Gala apples are exhausted by the end of January for the second year in a row. Large growers who have high-quality Gala store them to fulfill exports contracts, but such apples are practically no longer available on the local market. It was almost impossible to buy high-quality Gala on the domestic market in mid-January 2021, but the apple harvest in the country was much lower then.

According to the independent analytical project “APK-Inform: Vegetables and Fruits”, which has been monitoring the market of vegetables and fruits in Ukraine for 19 years, quality Gala apples can only be found in one retail chain in the country. However, the supplier’s stocks are also almost exhausted, and these apples will disappear from the shelves by the end of February.

Notably, growers assess the stocks of apples of other varieties as alarmingly high. They are not sure that they will sell all of them by the end of the season. At the same time, importers in Ukraine are mainly looking for Gala apples, as well as Golden, Granny Smith, Red Delicious and Fuji. By the way, there are serious problems with Fuji variety this year in Ukraine, which is usually the most expensive on the market. 2021 weather conditions were not suitable for Fuji apples. Therefore, their quality leaves much to be desired and is not exportable, with prices for Fuji being at a relatively low level.

“According to growers, apples of Red Jonaprince (a clone of the Jonagold variety) and Red Chief (a clone of the Red Delicious variety) are in good demand in the domestic apple market now. There were a lot of high-quality apples of these varieties in the harvest of 2021,” says Olexandr Khorev, head of the APK-Inform: Vegetables and Fruits project.

According to him, it is these two varieties that now dominate the exports of apples from Ukraine. Importers from Belarus are ready to even buy apples of outdated varieties, such as Idared and Jonagold, as apple prices are very high in Belarus after its self-isolation from the EU market.

Сообщение Stocks of apples of “Gala” variety in Ukraine are exhausted early for the second year in a row появились сначала на EastFruit.

Prices for white cabbage in the Russian market continue to grow due to a reduction in stock volumes on farms, as well as due to high demand from wholesale companies and retail chains, EastFruit project analysts report. It should also be noted that some growers restrain sales of white cabbage, thereby provoking a more intensive price increase in this segment. As a rule, these are the owners of specialized vegetable storages, who plan to sell the main volume of cabbage later, and therefore they set selling prices at a quite high level now.

Today selling prices for cabbage range from 44-58 RUB/kg ($0.56-0.73/kg), which is on average 10% more expensive than a week earlier. The main reason for this was the reduction in the supply of cabbage in the central zone of Russia, where most of the farms have already completed sales. In addition, the supply of cabbage from Dagestan was complicated due to severe frosts, having caused shortage of supply in some regions last week. This, in turn, also pushed prices up in the segment.

The price of cabbage in Russia is now much higher than last year. Today Russian producers sell cabbage on average 4.6 times more expensive than at the end of January 2021. At the same time, most market participants do not rule out a further price rise and believe that it will speed up as the stocks of white cabbage in local farms decrease.

Сообщение Stocks of cabbage are rapidly declining in Russia появились сначала на EastFruit.

The answer might not be an easy one. In March this year, according to the Custom Service of the Republic of Moldova,  slightly more than 17 thousand tons of apples were exported from the country – this is less than half of the volume of supplies (almost 30 thousand tons) in the same month last year. In April 2020, the country sharply increased the exports of apples – more than 39 thousand tons, in May it was also high – almost 25 thousand tons, and in June fell to the off-season level – about 3 thousand tons. Apparently, local exporting traders still hope in repeating last year’s scenario, at least close to it. But will this be enough, given that, according to expert estimates, about 50-70 thousand tons of last year’s apples remained in the storages of producers and traders by mid-April 2021?

Earlier EastFruit reported that in 2021 the exports of apples from Moldova are far behind compared to last year : in January-February, about 28 thousand tons of apples were exported from the country (for the same period last year, the exports of these fruits amounted to 54 thousand tons).

However, there is still no excessive nervousness due to the slow export of apples among their producers and exporters. Perhaps the calming factor is a small, on average by $ 0.03-0.05 / kg, increase in mid-April for Moldovan apples of almost all varieties for exports. Moreover, apples have slightly risen in price, despite a slight increase in the Moldovan Leu exchange rate against the dollar, as well as for a delay in the arrival of early berries and vegetables on the market due to a cool spring, which would indirectly influence apple prices.

But, most likely, producers and traders remain calm for another reason. Fruit market operators assume that actual marketable stocks of export-grade quality apples are below the estimated level currently determined by experts from individual agricultural producers’ associations.

Сообщение Will Moldova manage to sell the remaining stocks of good quality apples by June 2021? появились сначала на EastFruit.

The World Apple and Pear Association (WAPA) has published statistics on apple and pear residues stored in countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

According to the industry report, in Europe, the volume of apples in warehouses as of June 1 of this year was 33% less (657 thousand tons) than on the same date in 2019 (985 thousand tons). Most apples are stored in Italy – 207 thousand tons (-32.4% by 2019), France – 153 thousand tons (+ 6.7%), and Spain – 69.5 thousand tons (+30.5 %). It is noted that in Denmark the storage facilities are completely empty (-100%). FruitNews reports that the volume of production in storage decreased significantly in Poland (-75.6%), Germany (-56.6%), and Austria (-55%).

Of the total storage in Europe, 49.5% of apples are Golden Delicious, Jonagold – 8.7%, and Granny Smith – 5%.

Besides, in European stocks, the volume of pears decreased by 37% from 65.5 thousand tons in 2019 to 41.3 thousand tons in 2020. Most pears are stored in warehouses in the Netherlands (-16% compared with last year; 31.5 thousand tons), Spain (-4%; 8.5 thousand tons), and Belgium (-93.8%; 815 tons). The variety of Conference pears makes up 97.7% of the total.

As EastFruit previously reported, the United States can begin a new apple season, with significant volumes of the 2019 harvest apple in stock.

Сообщение In 2020, apple stocks in european warehouses reduced by a third появились сначала на EastFruit.