After two months of stability, wholesale potato prices on the Moldovan market started to decline one week before the important winter holidays. At the beginning of the week, the average price level was 7 MDL/kg (0.31/kg), down roughly 1 MDL/kg, according to EastFruit.
In New Year’s Eve week, the decrease persists, although slowly. But since mid-December, potato retail prices have been rising by 3-5% both in-store and, more noticeably, in-market. While this is going on, the price range for potatoes sold to “consumers” is 9–13 MDL/kg, which is nearly twice as expensive as the prices sold to wholesalers.
The owners of the fruit and vegetable businesses in Moldova contend that a decline in demand is the primary cause of the huge “price difference.” Many urban residents travel to rural areas or abroad for the winter holidays. They have seen that during the previous few years, more winter visitors have left the country than arrived.
In addition, labor migrants who came home for the New Year’s holiday with their families also spent the season more frequently in villages. Urban customers are becoming fewer, which has a negative impact on the demand for fundamental daily food items like potatoes and vegetables from the “borsch set.”
Moreover, consumers of all economic levels are attempting to purchase more “festive” meals.
Meanwhile, the marketing ploy of “offering less but more costly” is causing retail prices to rise. Potatoes’ historical position as the fruit and vegetable department’s least expensive item appears to have contributed to this development. Compared to, say, carrots and onions, they have a larger “price growth potential.”
In the previous five years, wholesale potato prices only increased this year and in 2020 in light of the winter festivities. Both years were ridden with great crises: one was a pandemic, the other was a war one. With extremely idle imports, both are dry and lean.
The Moldovan market, where potatoes are among the most costly in the area, will still get a relatively tiny amount of potato imports from the EU and Ukraine in December 2022—tens of tonnes per week. Even these levels, though, “placed pressure on wholesale pricing.
