The price of strawberry imported mostly from Greece that is sold in Moldovan supermarkets declines and this will exert pressure on the national greenhouse strawberry that usually goes on sale in April, consider experts of EastFruit, who are quoted by IPN.

The week before the vacation of December 2021, the strawberry in retail chains of the capital city was sold for at least 180 lei/kg (US$10.1 per kg), while in discount stores, the not-so-perfect strawberries can be brought for 120 lei/kg (US$67 per kg), said the quoted source.

The availability “out of season” from November until March of imported strawberries in stores and even their presence in an assortment (brand cartons, flow pack wrappers, plastic fruit containers) became a norm the last three or four years. During the first pandemic year, the supermarket chain, with pretentions of “premium” status in Moldova, started to present winter strawberries not as an expensive exotic product, but as rather ordinary merchandise, something between bilberry and oriental plums.

The Fruit Producers Association “Pomușoarele Moldovei” is describing the current situation as unequivocal. On the one hand, the relativity low prices and the continuously declining prices are a factor that will exert pressure on the starting price of local greenhouse strawberry. But this situation is offset by the generally low quality of the strawberries imported outside the season and this can become a contrasting advertisement for Moldovan early fruit.