The principal feedstock for tomato products are tomatoes. Their main consumers are the processing enterprises and the retail market represented by supermarkets, urban and rural markets.
According to ProAgro Company data, the demand for tomatoes from processers (producers of juices, ketchups, and canned products) is minimum 400,000 t. In 2008, the processing enterprises bought about 170,000 t of tomatoes, which covers one third of their needs. The volumes of consumption of tomato paste in Ukraine are growing every year. The constant growth of consumption of tomato paste demonstrates that the market has not reached the saturation level so far.
In its turn, the growth of capacity for production of tomato products led to the increase of the imports of feedstock for production thereof. Thus, in 2008 the volumes of tomato imports increased 11.5 times compared to 2006.
It should be mentioned that nearly 70% tomatoes are imported from Turkey, and over 80% of tomato paste are imported from China.
According to the official statistic data, Ukraine imports 42,400 t tomatoes. According to the experts, 70,000 t more are imported outside the customs control. These volumes seem small on the background of total production but only at the first glance. The problem is that illegal imports take place in winter and early spring and thus harm the most modern enterprises in Ukraine that find it hard to compete with the products imported without taxes and customs duties.
The share of imported products is about one quarter of consumption of tomato paste in Ukraine. Of course, such amount is bound to influence the price situation in the state especially when part of the foreign products comes with the invoice prices being understated nearly twice. For instance, an average price for which the operator brought tomato paste in Ukraine last year was $330-350 per one ton whereas an average exports price, according to the Chinese customs authorities was $670 for one ton, which is commensurable with the price of Ukrainian producers.
Based on these data and also having proved the losses that the Ukrainian companies suffer when products with dumping prices enter the market, the Ukrainian producers could initiate a special inquiry into the imports of tomato pastes from these states to Ukraine. However, they do not do it. Perhaps, the losses are not very great so far.
The main leaders in terms of production of tomato paste (concentrated tomato puree) were the farm enterprise Integrated Agrosystems – 24.7% of all produced tomato paste, LLC ACC – 20.8%, Odesa Canning Plant – 13.7%, and LLC Sandora- 11.9%. Together, these companies accounted for 71.1% of total production of this product.
One can get more detailed information on capacity of Ukrainian market of tomato products, tomato sales schemes and channels, price-setting, state market regulation, quality issues in the new research by ProAgro Company “Ukraine: Tomato Products Market”.
