While there is demand on the European market, Moldova can exports only honey, and not any other bee products, because we lack a laboratory to testify to the quality of products such as pollen, wax, propolis or royal jelly.

Vasile Dolghieru, president of the Association of Exporters of Bee Products, tells IPN that another obstacle is the low purchase price. “We do not have a market for these products. Beekeepers are used to the prices at which they sell the product on the market to the final consumer, and wholesale prices on the international market are lower. And there is this opinion among beekeepers that they are better off not producing at all than selling cheaply”.

Some 95 percent of the Moldovan honey is exported in bulk, which has lower price tags compared to packaged honey. “The tendency of the Exporters Association is to switch to food products based on bee products in order to reach final consumers directly. We are talking about products packaged in jars, but this is a whole different market, which is difficult to penetrate”, says Vasile Dolghieru. For Moldova to become a successful exporter of honey in jars, beekeepers need to invest a lot in marketing and promotion.

“We do have exports in jars, but the quantities are still small and there are not many buyers willing to accept a product unknown on the market. We need to find distributors, we cannot reach large retail networks”, explains Vasile Dolghieru.

He adds that Moldova could increase honey exports if efforts were made to plant more acacia and linden forests. “Acacia honey is the most in demand on the European market. But our beekeepers cannot obtain it in a pure enough form, as there are always infusions of other spring flowers. However, processors in Europe demand pure acacia honey. In the 1990s, many acacia forests in Moldova were cut down, either for firewood or for wood to make barrels. Hungary had a program, back in the 1970s, to plant acacia forests, and this has made Hungary Europe’s largest exporter of acacia honey”, says Vasile Dolghieru.

There are over 7,800 registered beekeepers in Moldova who in 2020 produced a total of about 3,500 tonnes of honey. The European Union is the main market for our honey, with the largest amounts going to Italy, France, Slovenia, Romania, Poland and Germany.