Ukraine is a leading global exporter of agricultural produce. The fertile soil and advantageous climate and geography enable cultivation of many types of fruits, including apples, plums, cherries, apricots, pears, and berries. However, the loss of the Russian market has hurt the fruit sector and forced Ukrainian companies to  find new markets to survive. Producers have  reviewed their approach to business, changed fruit varieties, and updated growing technologies along new marketing techniques and shipping procedures.

One of the challenges that fruit producers face, particularly in the apple sector, is market fragmentation, which makes meeting supply requirements for long-distance exporting a complex challenge. 

USAID’s Agriculture and Rural Development (ARDS) took on the challenge by developing systems that would help Ukrainian fruit producers to aggregate their export efforts and build their businesses. The USAID activity provided support in the development of USPA Fruit, an aggregating company. Most importantly, ARDS advised USPA Fruit on how to improve its business model to better respond to global market needs. In 2017, USPA Fruit became one of 27 Ukrainian small and medium fruit producers to receive USAID support to participate in Asia’s largest international trade show, Asia Fruit Logistica 2017, which takes place in Hong Kong.

“We hardly knew how to pronounce Hong Kong that first time there, but we were energized to show the quality of our products and prove the ability of Ukrainian producers to fulfill contract obligations,” recalls Dmytro Kroshka, USPA Fruit founder.

The Ukrainian exhibition stand displayed a variety of fruits and berries, including apples, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, currants, and blueberries, as well as dried and frozen berries, all produced in Ukraine. Buyers from several countries, including  Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, and the United Arab Emirates, expressed interest in the Ukrainian products. Ukrainian producers completed several deals for trial shipments, including orders for freeze-dried raspberries to Australia and apples to India and Dubai.

The agreement with the Dubai buyers became the first-ever large-scale sale of apples from Ukraine to the UAE. USPA Fruit successfully met strict quality criteria, including delivery of its product in bushel carton boxes with a certain net weight.

Subsequently, USAID ARDS supported the participation of USPA Fruit in more trade shows (Asia Fruit Logistica 2018, Fruit Logistica 2018 and 2019 in Berlin) and provided additional consultations on improving its market system approach. The development of advanced quality control procedures, to ensure that every shipment matched the required standards, proved a crucial component, particularly important when gathering products from a variety of orchards. Part of the challenge for  an effective aggregator such as USPA Fruit  is to nurture relationships with reliable and responsible Ukrainian suppliers to provide a stable, long-term supply for foreign buyers. To that end, the company conducted seminars in 2019, partly supported by ARDS, focusing on fruit growing and storing practices that meet export requirements. USPA Fruit trained farmers on foreign market demands, growing technologies that produce export quality fruits, proper planning, crop storage, and required shipping procedures.

Ukraine set export records for apples in both 2018 and 2019. USPA Fruit was an important driver of this success. In 2019, it shipped more than 2,000 tons of Ukrainian-grown apples to 15 countries.