Does US begin to buy Ukrainian chocolate?



“The main buyers of Ukrainian chocolate during eight months of this year were the USA (13.67% of the total exports), Kazakhstan (12.33%), Belarus (9.04%), the part of other countries amounted to 64.95%,” the analytical department of Ukrainian Food Export Board (UFEB) reports. Experts note that during January-August of 2018 the total exports of chocolate products amounted to 101 million USD.

It should be pointed out that the total volume of export of chocolate products in 2017 amounted to 60.898 thousand tons with a total value of 150.113 million USD. And the main importers were Kazakhstan, Belarus and the Republic of Moldova.

"If to speak about confectionery, the total export value of this segment during eight months of this year amounted to 86.1 million USD. The main importing countries were Kazakhstan – 13.34% of the total exports (the main export products were white chocolate, sugar hard boiling), Belarus – 12.24% (jelly marmalade, lollipops), Poland – 8.28% (white chocolate, lollipops), other countries amounted to 66.15%,” the analytical department of UFEB informs.

Note that according to the data of the State Customs Service, it was exported 55.1 thousand tons of confectionery (including white chocolate) during January-August of 2018, which is 7.1% more than in January-August of 2017 (51.2 thousand tons). The export volume exceeds the import one by 7 times (55.1 thousand tons against 7.9 thousand tons). According to the State Customs Service, the total import of confectionery in January-August of 2018 by 14% exceeds the figure of the same period of the last year (6.8 thousand tons against 7.9 thousand tons). One third of the total amount of import is from the EU countries.

"Bakery products are bought by the same “players" among exporting countries this year too: Belarus – 16.45% of the total exports (main products are dry biscuits with filling, biscuit rolls, sweet dry biscuits), the Republic of Moldova – 9.8% (wafers, chocolate-free cookies, croissants), Kazakhstan – 9.15% (wafers, sweet dry biscuits, dry biscuits with filling), the part of other countries amounted to 64.61%,” UFEB notes.

"The total value of exports of bakery products amounted to 98.7 million USD during January-August,” the expert adds.

It should be pointed out that during 2017 it was exported from Ukraine about 100.5 thousand tons of bakery products with the total value of 139 million USD. The main markets were Belarus (13,553 tons – 18.371 million USD), Kazakhstan (10.278 thousand tons – 14.1 million USD), the Republic of Moldova (10.188 tons – 13.648 million USD), Georgia (5.716 thousand tons – 7 million USD).