According to the Association Moldova Fruct, September exports of apples in 2024 amounted to about 5.2 thousand tons, in 2023 – 6.3 thousand tons, in 2022 – 9.4 thousand tons, in 2021 – 22.3 thousand tons.
It follows from the above data that since the beginning of the current five-year period, the export of Moldovan apple in the first month of fall has been annually decreasing. Only in September of this year, the trend of external supplies of these fruits at the start of the fall sales stage changed from downward to upward.
Operators of fruit market of Moldova believe that it is unlikely to draw far-reaching conclusions from this fact. Most likely, a slightly more active export of apples in September last year was due to situational, tactical rather than strategic reasons.
First of all, since the second decade of September the export of plums from Moldova to the European Union decreased. Moldovan farmers and traders focused on the process of putting plums into storage, “competition for a place in industrial fruit storages” started. Accordingly, in this situation, some exporters during this period considered it a good thing to reorient to external supplies of apples “from the orchard”.
Secondly, according to EastFruit price monitoring data, in September of this year the average wholesale price for apples in Moldova was about 11% higher than a year before. Probably, this circumstance is also connected with some activation of export of these fruits at the beginning of the autumn stage of the 2025-26 marketing year.
In October, due to prolonged precipitation in the first half of the month, the pace of apple harvesting and, probably, their exports slowed down.
