Deep summer means slow import market in Russia

With cheaper, local fruits and vegetables available on the market, trade is often slower this time of year for Russian importers.

"It is normal that consumption drops for imported products during July and August, what we consider to be 'deep summer'. Consumers are only really interested in local fruits and vegetables like tomatoes and watermelons, along with various stone and soft fruits." shared importer Andrey Volkov from Tropic Fruit.

Vegetables like local Russian open field tomatoes are especially popular with consumers, both because consumers have the feeling that they are more 'natural' than the greenhouse tomatoes (which Andrey urges, is not really true), but also because they are 2 to 3 times cheaper than their greenhouse counterparts.

"The local open field tomatoes are so popular, that some small local traders in kiosks even mark foreign tomatoes as Russian grown to sell them better. Many believe that the uglier the tomato the better, with some even marking them as bio, which is not the case. The only people doing this are the local growers, who I don't believe really know what Bio entails." continued Andrey.

"Of course, supermarkets, especially exclusive ones, do still sell small quantities of imported tomatoes in order to offer alternative varieties or types which are not offered in the local market. However, this is mostly for the top 1-2%, where the supermarkets only receive around 1 box of each variety or type, per supermarket, per week. It is more about them having a broad selection than based on customer demand."

For more information:
Andrey Volkov
Tropic Group
Tel: +34 605 757 727
Email: andreyvolkov1968@gmail.com
www.tropic-group.ru