Exports
This week, Logos Press, citing the Moldova Fruct Association, reported that between July 1, 2024 and May 1, 2025, the country shipped to foreign markets just over 90 thousand tons of apples of the 2024 harvest. In July-December last year, the country exported about 37,000 tons of apples from the 2024 harvest, which is relatively small for this period of the year.
Accordingly, in January-May 2025, exports of apples from RM amounted to about 53 thousand tons. Obviously, in the current marketing year, as in the past, the main “sales wave” shifted to the second half of winter – first half of spring. Such a scenario of external sales was typical for the last marketing seasons of the last decade.
At the same time, according to Vitalii Obreceanu, commercial director of Fresh Time cooperative, the company finished the active export of apples of the crop-2024 by mid-April, as the stocks in the refrigerated warehouse ran out. And this case is not the only one. Last year’s export-quality apples in RM, as market operators believe, are in principle relatively scarce. Consequently, it can be assumed that hardly more than 20 thousand tons of apples from Moldova will be exported during the two months remaining before the end of the current marketing season.
In total, for the whole marketing year 2024-25 exports may amount to 105-110 thousand tons. At the same time, at the end of the last – beginning of the current decade, the “grandmaster” exports for the marketing season were in the range of 200-210 thousand tons.
Industrial processing
Apple deliveries from industrial refrigerators to factories outside the active processing season, winter-spring of this year, were small. According to preliminary estimates – a few thousand tons at most. That is, since the end of autumn there have been no significant changes in this segment of sales of apples of the-2024 crop.
Representatives of the Association of Fruit and Vegetable Processors Speranța Con claim that in summer-autumn last year, apple concentrate factories bought from Moldovan agricultural producers and trading companies about 220-230 thousand tons of raw materials. The planned total volume of raw materials – about 240-250 thousand tons – canning factories did not get enough.
Domestic market
The assessment of the capacity of the domestic apple market in Moldova by specialists of specialized associations is usually carried out purely theoretically, by calculation. If we subtract the estimated amount of export and processing from the estimated volume of apple production in the harvest of 2024 (about 440 thousand tons), then something about 100 thousand tons remains for the domestic market.
At the same time, according to expert calculations, the country’s population is unlikely to consume more than 60 thousand tons of apples. In bad harvest years and years of high prices for these fruits – most likely less. That is, it can be assumed that until July about 10-15 thousand tons of apples of last year’s harvest for the domestic “fresh market” in fruit storages of Moldova will definitely be found. However, some operators of the country’s fruit market believe that this is an optimistic assessment.
There is an opinion that the size of the last year’s harvest and, as a result, the size of the stock of apples by the beginning of the last month of spring 2025 in RM are overestimated. It is quite possible that they are not 30-35 thousand tons, but 20-25 thousand tons.
Prices
According to EastFruit price monitoring, at the beginning of May 2025 the level of average prices for apples of almost all varieties for the “frosh market” – for fresh consumption – in Moldova amounted to about 12 lei/kg. That is, the price level is at the five-year maximum for this period of the marketing season. The prices for apples in RM were close to the current indicators (but still lower by 5-10% both in lei and dollar terms) only at the beginning of May 2020 and 2021. Last May, this commodity in bulk on the Moldovan market was almost twice as cheap.
At the same time, in the first decade of May of the current year, the average wholesale price for apples in Moldova was about 12 lei/kg. At the same time, the prices in our country still remain at one of the lowest levels in Central and Eastern Europe. Only in Poland the average wholesale price is still significantly lower – by 0.10-0.15 euros/kg.
External context
It is very likely that the situation on the European apple market will undergo significant changes at the end of the 2024/25 marketing season. In this regard, it is important that the World Apple and Pear Association WAPA recently reduced its estimate of European apple stocks by 7.1% to 1.76 million tons compared to the same time last year.
Moreover, the largest reduction in estimated stocks was noted in Poland – by 25%, to 379 thousand tons. And the countries holding the largest reserves of apple harvest-2024 – France, Italy, Switzerland, Great Britain and Denmark – are located quite far from Moldova.
Conclusions
At the moment, Moldovan apples in terms of price/quality are still losing to Polish apples on the Romanian market. However, with the further reduction of stocks of marketable apples of the highest and first category at Polish traders and, accordingly, increase in their prices, apples from the Republic of Moldova may get another chance on the Romanian market.
It is also not excluded that taking into account the growth of prices/demand for apples in the Russian Federation, Moldovan apples will be more actively exported to this “unpopular” but “appreciating market” at the end of the season.
Taking into account that the start of sales of new harvest fruit in 2025 will not be too early, as well as significant losses of stone fruits and berry plantations from frosts, the operators of the Moldovan fruit market predict a high demand for last year’s apples in RM. At the same time, traders do not exclude that in late spring – early summer of this year, imported apples, more expensive, but also of higher quality, will appear on the shelves of Moldovan stores.
