ECONOMIC FEATURES OF PROCESSED FRUIT PRODUCTION IN SERBIA

Abstract

There are various possibilities of fruit processing regarding assortments of both semiprocessed and fnished fruit products. Within a wide assortment of processed fruit products, there are semi-processed fruit products which can be directly marketed or used as raw materials in further stages of processing, thus causing different economic effects. This paper displays the indicators of economic effects (production value, production costs (especially direct costs), and the difference between production value and total production costs) in all stages of a certain type of fruit processing. The obtained results indicate that advanced stages of fruit processing entail an increase in costs, but these increased costs eventually enable higher revenues. Fruit processing is cost-effective due to the fact that fruit processing value is higher than the market value of fruits. The fruit processing value in compote production is on average 48.87% higher than the fruit market value. In semi-processed fruit production (fruit puree and pitted crushed fruits Rotativa2), the fruit processing value is on average 14.83% higher than the fruit market value.