Quality verification and official green light
Chairman of the State Consumer Service Serhiy Tkachuk said that the test batch previously sent to India had passed all the necessary checks. The products confirmed their competitiveness and compliance with phytosanitary norms of the local market.
“Now producers have the legal and technical basis to conclude direct contracts. We have moved from the testing stage to full-fledged trade,” Tkachuk noted, writes EastFruit.
Logistical challenge: 60 days at sea
Despite the optimism, geography remains a key barrier. It takes about two months to deliver products to India, which is much longer than transportation time to the usual European or Middle Eastern hubs. The long logistics makes exports late in the season extremely risky due to the threat of fruit spoilage. This forces growers to invest in high-quality packaging and long-term storage technologies (RGS – regulated gas environment).
Resource potential and competition for volumes
Volodymyr Pechko, head of the Ukrsadvynprom association, notes that the demand in India is enormous – the country annually imports up to 560 thousand tons of apples worth over $400 million. The main players there are Turkey, Iran, the USA and Afghanistan.
Ukraine could theoretically send even 1000 containers, but at the moment there are internal restrictions. Available export products have already been partially contracted by buyers from UAE (Dubai), UK and Sweden. Also, at this stage, prices inside Ukraine are quite high, which makes domestic sales more attractive for many farms than complex export operations.
Statistical snapshot and forecasts
According to the monitoring data, in the 2024/2025 season Ukraine exported only 16.8 thousand tons of apples (worth $10.1 million) to foreign markets. Entering the Indian market with a volume of 500 containers will allow to significantly increase these figures and diversify supplies, reducing dependence on the Middle East conjuncture.
Full-fledged start of systematic shipments to India is expected from next year. This will be an important stage in the recovery of Ukrainian horticulture and strengthening its position on the global agro-export map.
Moldovan apples in India
Earlier, Logos Press reported that Moldovan traders have been trying to periodically export apples to India for five years. During this period, several test shipments were made to the Indian market – about 340 tons in total. Since February last year, Moldova has received official authorization from the Indian authorities to supply apples in a normal mode, without administrative restrictions. In the spring of the same year, a small commercial shipment of Moldovan apples arrived on the Indian market.
Last year apple exports to India (as well as to other distant countries by sea) were not significant due to a relatively low harvest and small resources of high-quality apples that can travel a very long way. Moreover, the prices of apple supplies to the traditional markets – CIS and EU countries – increased significantly.
