2022 was not the best year for fruit growers in Serbia due to the war in Ukraine and increased input costs, primarily transportation. Zoran Keserovic, Professor at the Agriculture Faculty in Novi Sad, said that the selling prices of raspberries were unrealistically high, regardless of the quality of the domestic product. "The price of €3.4 to €5.1 per kilogram for frozen raspberries was too high. It is difficult to predict but if raspberries remain unsold in cold storages for a long time, the price will certainly be lower than the previous season. If the production price of raspberries is around €1.20, the selling price will vary from €1.5 to €2/kg", says prof Keserovic.
The professor points out that one of the biggest problems of raspberry growers in Serbia is their relation with cold storage owners. Growers are not shareholders of the cold storages. "I have asked the processors and producers to come to an agreement, but not much success there. Few years ago, the cold storers earned large amounts of money, and now the situation is that they cannot export at the price at which they bought the fruit. A difficult situation for raspberry producers and traders," explained the professor for Biznis.rs.
At the recently held AgroBelgrade Fair, Aleksandar Jovanovic from Autentika Global spoke in detail about the reasons for the drop in raspberry exports last year. "The high prices trend was present for the last two years and that was good for producers, especially when frozen raspberries and blackberries were concerned. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Serbia’s biggest competitors have been the Poles and Ukrainians. Their average price of raspberries was €2.2 to €2.9 per kilogram, while Serbia exported at a price of over €5. Although Serbian raspberry varieties cannot be compared with Polish or Ukrainian in terms of quality, consumers in supermarkets do not pay much attention to that," explained Mr. Jovanovic.
