There are minor quality issues coming from South Africa, but most of the quality issues have been with the lemons from Argentina due to weather issues. Although the quality is currently better with South African lemons, they are a bit on the small side for Russian consumers.
There is overwhelming demand for traditional lemons and the market for organic is very small and only minimal volumes are sent. They are seen as a luxury item which a majority of the country can not afford, and they don't typically find organic important enough to pay extra for.
Recent talks about Europe once again blocking citrus from South Africa is not expected to have a huge effect on Russia.
"I don't think that Russia would be affected much if Europe stopped sourcing lemons from South Africa. There is not much time left in the season, only 2 to 3 months tops. There are not many lemons around now anyway, so I don't expect any huge problems," said a Russian Importer.
"The trade embargo also hasn't had any negative effect on the lemon market in Russia because we primarily source from the southern hemisphere anyway. When we do switch over to the northern hemisphere, the lemons are from Turkey. We had already stopped trading with Spain 5 or 6 years ago, due to their very short production window and it just wasn't necessary in terms of supply."
