Russia has reduced its fruit and vegetable imports by 30 per cent compared to 2013, since implementing vetoes on imports coming from the EU.
As a result of the veto, which was implemented in 2015, countries such as Belarus, China, Morocco and Turkey, as well as neighbouring Asian countries have benefitted by increasing their exports, hortoinfo.es reports.
In 2013, Spain was Russia's main lettuce supplier, with sales over 20.2 million kilos, followed by the Netherlands and Italy. In 2015, Russia reduced its lettuce imports by 36.6 per cent, and Belarus became the main supplier with 11.6 million kilos, followed by Tunisia and Turkey.
Israel and China remain Russia's top supplier of peppers, however, in 2015, Russia reduced its pepper imports by 23.53 per cent and Spain and the Netherlands - who were the third and fifth largest exporters - lost all their market share.
Netherlands and Spain went from being top suppliers of tomatoes - the former with a share of 8.6 per cent and the latter with 8.2 per cent - to being out of the picture. In 2015, Turkey remained Russia's top tomato supplier, going from 39 to 51 per cent share, while Belarus reaching second place going from 5.5 to 13 per cent.
A similar picture materialised for cucumber producers as both Spain and the Netherlands were phased out after previously being main suppliers. While Iran and Turkey are still the two top suppliers, Turkey increased its share and Belarus went from the sixth to the third place.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Gabriela Guédez. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
