Source: Abercade Research Company, State Statistical Agency

JAR IMPORT
The requirements of the food industry not covered by domestic manufacturers and second-hand empties are met by import, which is tens of times bigger than the volume of export. A considerable predominance of import over export is explained by the narrow range of Russian glass tare products as well as by their quality, which does not always meet international standards.
Import mostly meets the demand of the Russian industry for high-quality food tare and tare of nonstandard capacity. In the nearest future, the level of import of jars will continue to exceed their export.
In 2007, 17% of Russia’s annual jar consumption was imported into the country. In 2004-2007, the dynamics of the jar import in kind is presented in the diagram below.
Until 2006, the volume of jar import into Russia was steadily decreasing. However, in 2006 the import in kind increased by 29.9% as compared to 2005. Such a considerable growth was associated with a sharp increase in glass jar consumption. However, in 2007 the import of glass jars dropped by almost 17%, which is explained by the increasing Russian production.
The largest jar suppliers into the Russian market are Ukraine, Germany and Hungary, which account jointly for more than 79% of total imports. Companies from Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic remain sufficiently active in the Russian market. The 2007 rating of jar supplier countries is presented below.

The 2007 rating of largest glass jar supplier countries 
 

JAR EXPORT
In 2007, the export growth was equal to 200% as compared to the indicators of the previous year. And although this indicator constituted only 2% of the total glass jar consumption in the Russian Federation in that year, the dynamics of export deliveries possibly highlights an important trend in the saturation of the Russian market with domestically produced jars, especially taking into consideration the fact that this dynamics directly correlates with the decrease in import.
In 2004-2007, the export of jars from Russia increased by almost 360%. This is primarily explained by increasing volumes of sales by companies. As regards destination countries, the structure of the Russian export of glass tare is traditionally orientated towards CIS countries.
Half of all export deliveries falls on Ukraine. The share of other counties – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Georgia – is 48%. The remaining 12 countries, to which Russian-made jars are exported, constitute about 2% of total exports.

JAR CONSUMTPION
The past two years have witnessed a steady growth of glass jar consumption associated primarily with a considerable increase in the output in that period. In 2005-2006, the growth constituted 8%, and a year later it was equal to 9.5%. In our opinion, the trend towards consumption growth will prevail in the nearest future.
In the overall structure of glass tare consumption the share of food jars has considerably decreased to 15%.
On the whole, glass jars are mostly used for canning. In the juice market bottles are in greater demand than jars to this day. Sauce producers more often prefer polymer packing. The 2007 jar consumption structure is presented in the diagram below.

Market Development Prospects

Market participants and experts explain success of the Russian glass tare industry by a rapid development of the alcohol-producing sector, primarily the brewing industry, and preferences Russians give to low-alcohol drinks instead of strong ones. As it has already been mentioned, the glass tare sector is growing by 10-13% annually.
The main growth is ensured by glass tare consumption. In other words, the continuing shortage of glass tare serves as an incentive to its manufacturers.
The assortment of glass jars has considerably widened lately due to jars of unusual capacity such as 0.24 l, 0.9 l and 0.48 l instead of the standard 0.25 l, 1 l and 0.5 l. The small saving on the volume gives a price preference to end products before the foods packed into jars of standard capacity. Besides that, new modern packing and sealing lines have appeared which permit to use a diversity of shapes, capacity and collar diameters.
Today manufacturers give preference to jars of 250-750 ml. Jars of such capacity are probably in greatest demand among canned foods consumers.
However, an insignificant decrease in the share of food jar consumption in the total volume of glass tare is forecast for the nearest future.
According to Abercade estimates, the expected rise in demand on jars will amount to 8-10% in the next few years. Jars of nonstandard capacity up to 1.0 l will be increasingly popular.