In an interview with FreshPlaza, Stanislav Poluektov, representative of Russian fruit and vegetables import company, Eurofruit-SPb confirms that currently, the main products from Latin America that are demanded by the Russian market are apples, pears and citrus. As for apples, the main varieties are Red Delicious, Granny Smith and Royal Earn mainly from Chile and Argentina. Regarding pears, the leading provider in Latin America is Argentina. Moreover, in Russia they are waiting for citrus from Argentina, where they are just starting the season (of Lemons, Mandarins and late Oranges).
For this apple season coming from Chile and Argentina, Poluektov highlights the quality of Chilean apples and according to him "The quality of Chilean apples is better although the price of the fruit is higher. However, the price depends on the provider." Since the apple season only began a few weeks ago, Stanislav says it is still very difficult to have a general idea of the quality of the fruit. What the Russian importer did say was that they expect the volume of imported apples to Russia be the same as last year.
Significantly, in addition to products already mentioned, the Russian market also claimed for table grapes mainly from from Chile and Peru. (Of the varieties Red Globe and Thompson).
As for the quality of table grapes in Latin America, Stanislav states that "The quality of Red Globe grapes from Peru are better than the Chilean ones." Regarding the Thompson grape variety, the Russian importer says that because Peru has limited availability of Chile Thompson grapes it stands out as the first provider of this variety for the Russian market. The volume of grapes from Chilean Thompson is much higher than the volume of Peru, but as Stas says "The volume of grapes from Peru is growing every year."
For the Russian fruit importer Eurofruit-SPb, among the productsof interest are citrus and table grapes from Peru, and apples and table grapes from Brazil.
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Stanislav Poluektov