"It's a difficult market situation in Russia at the moment. The import of sweet Californian peppers has slowed because most consumers are not willing to pay 200 rubles per kilo for capsicums when they can buy tomatoes or cucumbers for much less, around 50," shared a Russian importer.
Red capsicums are the most popular amongst consumers taking up around 80% of the offering, the remaining 20% consists of yellow (15%) and green (5%). Local production replaces the Californian sweet peppers with a different type of slightly pointed peppers, referred to as Bulgarian capsicums, dating back to the Soviet days when Bulgaria was the main supplier. Although consumers prefer to buy the red varieties, they are virtually absent in the open field production, which is dominated by white capsicums.
"This situation should improve in the next week or two, once the domestic open field capsicums enter the market. I think that sales should improve again once this happens because the price of domestic capsicums is a lot lower than the expensive imports." concludes the importer.
Depending on the weather, the domestic season should be starting at any time and run through to the middle/end of September.