Aegean Fresh Food Exporters introduced their fruits and vegetables in World Food Moscow held on 14th thru 17th September 2015. Visited by more than 30 thousand people, 1674 companies from 72 countries exhibited their grapes, cherries, tangerines, lemon and other foods.
Deputy chairman of association of Aegean fresh fruits and vegetable exporters was also in the event. He said, “Russia is the largest market for Turkish food. The effects of recent economic problems in this country were also felt in the fair. The number of visitors this time was down. However, we are optimistic for the coming year. Grapes and cherries are mostly sourced from and exported by Aegean growers. We did our best to promote the popularity of Satsuma kind of tangerines, a special kind of Aegean region during the event.”
Riza Seyyar, board member of the association of Turkish exporters and chairman of association of Aegean fresh fruits and vegetable exporters, emphasized on the maintaining the position in the market is as important as finding new markets. He said, “In this regard we have to keep our efforts going to exhibit our products in Russian federation if we want to catch our 2023 targets. Russia ranks second after Germany in exports from the members of the association of Aegean fresh fruits and vegetable exporters. In 2012 49.5 million dollars worth of fresh foods were exported to Russia. It was 55.3 million dollars in 2013. In 2014, ıt stepped back by 27.6 million due to the economic crises in Russia. By now in 2015, it is registered as 18.3 million dollar.”
Among the fruits and vegetable exports to Russian market from Aegean region tomato has the largest share with 7.3 million dollars of sales, that is followed by sultana grapes with 3.3 dollars and cherries with 2.7 million dollars.
The association was represented in the fair by Ahmet Goksel, Hasan Yilmaz, deputy chairmen of the assoc. and members of the board, Erdinc Inan Yilmaz, Alkan Celik Suleyman Unlu, and Gokay Celikli, an expert of the association.
- Photo:
- (standing) Gokay Celikli, Erdinc Inan Yilmaz, Alkan Celik
- (sitting) Sami Karaoglan, Ahmet Goksel, Hasan Yilmaz, Suleyman Unlu