According to EastFruit, a very resonant event took place on the Ukrainian market this week – for the first time in history, Ukraine began to import fresh cucumber from a country that was previously the main sales market for Ukrainian greenhouse cucumbers, i.e. From Russia!

According to trade sources, the Russian cucumber proves to be competitive in price with the Ukrainian one, despite the 10% import duty that importers have to pay. Ukraine withdrew from the free trade agreement with the Russian Federation.

“At the moment, the supply of Ukrainian cucumber on the market is very limited – only a few factories are shipping, so the prices for Ukrainian cucumber are relatively high – 38-45 UAH / kg ($ 1.44-1.70 US dollars per kg). Accordingly, against this background, the import of cucumber from Turkey has sharply increased, which is available on average by 5-10 UAH / kg (19-38 US cents) cheaper. There is also a cucumber from Belarus on sale, which costs a little more than a Turkish one. But the Russian cucumber comes to the market at the lowest prices among all competitors, because in Russia there is now a downward trend in prices for cucumber,” says Evgeny Kuzin, head of international projects at Fruit-Inform.com.

“At the moment, a smooth cucumber in Russia can be bought even at 60-80 rubles / kg ($ 0.82-1.09 US dollars per kg), and a short lumpy one – at 90-120 rubles / kg ($ 1.23-1, USD 64 per kg). Therefore, the import of cucumber from Russia is currently economically profitable for the fruit and vegetable trade,” the expert explains.

By the way, not only Ukraine imports cucumber from Russia. Even Poland, which is one of the largest exporters of greenhouse vegetables in the region, is increasing imports of greenhouse cucumbers grown in Russian greenhouses. 

“The Russian greenhouse business is, excuse the tautology, in greenhouse conditions – imports from many countries of the world are prohibited, greenhouses have been receiving serious subsidies from the budget and access to very cheap financing for many years in a row. As a result, in recent years, multibillion-dollar investments have come into the greenhouse business in Russia, and the country has practically become self-sufficient in terms of cucumber,” explains Andrey Yarmak, economist at the Investment Department of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Thus, even now every fifth 5th generation greenhouse (the most modern type of greenhouse in the world) is currently operating in Russia. Therefore, in 2021, in the first three quarters of the calendar year, Russia has already exported 12.2 thousand tons of fresh cucumber. But imports have so far exceeded exports and amounted to 34 thousand tons. However, imports declined slightly, while exports increased by 23%!

In the first 8 months of 2021, Ukraine imported a record amount of fresh cucumber for this period of the year – 12.1 thousand tons, and Turkey and Belarus were the main suppliers of cucumber to Ukraine. Export of cucumber for the same period from Ukraine amounted to 4 thousand tons and, by the way, it increased by 2.3 times in relation to the same period of 2020.

Note that Ukraine traditionally imports the main volumes of fresh cucumber in November-December, when local factories stop production. Usually during this period, cucumber comes to Ukraine from the greenhouses of Turkey and, in much smaller quantities, from Iran.

EastFruit