A South African exporter, Pomona Fruit, who exclusively focuses on pome fruit, citrus, table grapes and stone fruit exports to Russia, says the market is operating as normal. Stephen Paulsen, who does sales for Pomona, has returned from recently visiting Russia to see the arrival of their citrus: "We only export to Russia, we don't do other markets. We focus mainly on retail, we have programs in Russia, with all fruit types, stone fruit, apples, pears, grapes and citrus. We try to make programs ahead of time."
The exporter is based in Robertson, just outside Cape Town in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. "I visited Russia in September, life continues there like normal. Every grower would have about 10% of their tree's fruit that will go to Russia, simply because it meets this specific market's requirements."
Big competition in Russia
While other European countries are not present like before, there's still big competition in the Russian market, says Paulsen. "This competition comes from Egypt, Argentina and China. China delivered more lemons than before, they are becoming big players in Russia, which was not the case before. In Lemons, they were late in the market, they deliver a decent product at a good price level. This had a huge effect on the price level on the open market."
Pomona's last ship with fruit has just arrived in Russia. Overall, they had a good South African citrus season says Paulsen, especially the latter part However, from the Eastern Cape there were sizing issues. The early navels were not good. The early market was fine on oranges, but not spectacular. We are now in the late season in the retail of Russia. The open market for early soft citrus and early oranges was challenging. The soft citrus early season was tough, we had challenging quality issues on early varieties, but the quality did improve on mid and late season varieties. On early cultivars there were issues, but not for the later fruit. The product from the North of South Africa was good, we can't complain. The Western Cape had rain on bad times during the season. And the Eastern Cape had challenges as mentioned in regard to sizes etc. Our citrus season was good in terms of the retail aspect and volumes sent there, helped by the people we worked with. However, we finished sooner than we expected," explains Paulsen.
Payments slow, but still arrives from Russia
Over the years, many exporters in countries from around the world always complained about the struggle to obtain payment from Russia. Paulsen says this is part and parcel of the Russian market for which a certain tolerance and flexibility must be expected. "We try to be more consistent with the retail offering in Russia, we had no problem in retail in regard to receiving funds. Our focus on the retail side, the money comes as it should. They make plans, while there are delays in payments, but it does arrive eventually. Others do a lot of exports to wholesale, they also struggled to get payments. That's how it is in Russia every season. It is positive that we're able to get our money," states Paulsen.
Shipping to Russia
He says they changed from conventional shipping to break bulk early in the season. "We changed our strategy this year, we did not really use MSC, we only used them for our early stone fruit and early pears. From there we went with break bulk through Anlin Shipping. It's about getting into the market early. There are also challenges with break bulk, but for us, it is better than going with big shipping lines, from a pure timing aspect to reach the market. After this last citrus shipment, we are looking to start with stone fruit in two or three weeks' time, but it's not a big line for us in Russia," concludes Paulsen.
For more information:
Stephen Paulsen
Pomona Fruit
Tel: +27 084 593 0145
[email protected]