If it seemed to you that in recent days the prices of cucumbers in St. Petersburg have soared to astronomical heights, then it did not seem to you: the average price of a vegetable crop in the Haymarket ranges from 400 to 500 rubles per kilogram. In stores, so that customers do not faint from shock, they are sold piece by piece. “Fontanka” ran through the shops and found out what was going on.
“The people have no money”
There is no smell of an abundance of cucumbers at the Haymarket — sellers who offer greenhouse vegetables can be counted on the fingers of one hand out of the abundance of hawkers. But even those who have dared to sell cucumbers, there are only two varieties available: either smooth long or short pimpled. Both of them have the same price — a nightmare.
Raising an eyebrow invitingly, the seller nods at his product — short cucumbers with pimples for 450 rubles, even the inflorescences have not yet had time to crumble.
“Cucumbers are just like that. Now there are few of them, so it’s expensive, it’s a market. When there will be a lot of deliveries, it will be cheaper. In two weeks, probably, they will appear,” explains the seller in a red sweater.
In the shop opposite there are consumptive-looking starvels, soft, with a sickly pale skin. On a market day, such people would be thrown into a puddle with slops without hesitation, but today they give it for 500 rubles. “Azerbaijani,” the seller justifies the price.
There are no price tags in principle on most trays — against the general background of tomatoes at 80 and eggplants at 100 rubles per kilo, “golden” cucumbers would look like an outright mockery. “Customers get scared and move away,” a woman salesman in a greasy apron reluctantly explains.
“Their purchase price on the base is 420 rubles. I took them yesterday — no one bought them from me. The people have no money. Today I decided not to get involved,” the moustache in a knitted hat admits, he bet on tangerines and tomatoes.
Hawkers are not going to reduce the price of cucumbers even at night looking. The rule “just to get away with it and recapture at least something” does not work today. “It’s not profitable for me. Yes, I’d rather take them home,” says the black—browed seller in the Apraksin yard.
Such a picture on the market, hawkers say, lasts for the fifth day. Usually cucumbers came to the Russian counter from Belarus, Azerbaijan, Krasnodar Territory, but now there is no import.
In retail chains, the range is wider, but prices are trying to reach the market bar. In the “Crossroads”, smooth—skinned cucumbers sell for 190 rubles for 600 grams, medium-fruited cucumbers with pimples – for 300. In the “Ribbon”, pimpled cucumbers, packaged for 300 grams, give 249 rubles, skinny long-fruited ones go for 84 rubles a piece. In the “Magnet”, the hanging of short—fruited greenhouses is given at 210 rubles for 450 grams, gherkins – at 230 rubles for 300 grams.
Where does it come from
When Russian officials began to bend their fingers, listing the successes of import substitution, cucumbers were among the first. With a total consumption of almost a million tons per year, 94% of its own, estimates the Institute of Agricultural Market Conjuncture (ICAR). Moreover, the production of cucumbers in 2022 broke all previous records — 885.7 thousand tons (+5.3% compared to the previous year).
Such high achievements inevitably led to unprecedented low retail prices. Rosstat recorded an average price of 66 rubles per kilo in St. Petersburg in early September. This has not happened in our city since 2017, when an average of 62 rubles were asked for a kilogram of cucumbers. Since then it has been more expensive. For comparison: in 2021, it did not fall below 86. Moreover, last year Russia was a notable exporter of cucumbers. For example, at least 3,500 tons of cucumbers were sent to Poland (until October).
It is all the more bitter now to observe the state of affairs in the cucumber farm, which, according to the current well-fed times, might seem disastrous to someone: in the largest retail chains, for the most part, they stopped selling them per kilogram — either individually or in packages of 350-600 grams.
Long-term observations of the prices of cucumbers show that in winter they necessarily become more expensive, and by two or three times — this is the norm. The economic explanation for this phenomenon is obvious — the deficit. Traders in the market, retail chain managers, managers, and federal distributors speak about it in different words.
Why on earth the greenhouse economy shows so much seasonality is not very clear, but the fact remains. Somewhere in October, every single year, cucumbers run out in our country – no matter how many of them were grown over the summer. No production records of greenhouses, as we clearly see that year, do not matter here. They just come to an end, and all of them — and smooth, and with pimples, gherkins, and everything in general. The inevitable growth always slows down in the first week or two of January and then again always and necessarily continues further, and so on until the end of February – early March. It seems that fighting this phenomenon is like fighting the very change of seasons.
Since ancient times, the deficit in the domestic market has been defeated by imports. Naturally and here. Since October, the relatively noticeable import of cucumbers from abroad began neatly. The largest suppliers are Belarus, Azerbaijan, China, Turkey. Belarus does not count, everything is exactly the same with cucumbers there as with us. But supplies from warm countries almost literally repeat the bends of the price curve in our stores.
However, as we remember, Russia has almost replaced the cucumber industry with zero imports. And our imports barely reach 5% of the demand, which means that they hardly cope with their function as a price regulator. There are simply not enough Chinese, Azerbaijani and Turkish cucumbers, and they are not able to influence the appetites of the domestic producer, which repeatedly inflates prices in winter. There is, of course, an explanation for this: it is much more expensive to heat and light greenhouses in winter than in summer. Not to mention how much it costs in the south. After all, the average cost of a kilogram of cucumbers from China is $ 1.64, from Azerbaijan — 1.5, and from Turkey — 0.84. It makes no sense to compare this with prices in stores. They are formed by completely different people and for completely different reasons.
From the garden to the counter
Cucumbers are supplied to the retail chains of St. Petersburg and vegetable bases by the agricultural holding “Vyborzhets” — “the leader in the production of fresh vegetables and herbs in the North-Western region,” the company’s official website says.
— Our cucumbers regularly get into retail chains, there are no problems, everything is great for us. Look at the example of “Magnet”, “Pyaterochka”, “Dixie”, “OK”, “Tape”. They all have their own brand, there are products of our production and other greenhouses. What kind of harvest do we shoot daily? Different varieties in different ways, I can’t say right off the bat,” the Vyborg sales service told Fontanka.
And no matter how great things are going at the Vyborg greenhouse, they cannot saturate the St. Petersburg market with cucumbers alone: there are clearly few offers on the market, there is no cucumber.
One of the possible reasons for the breakdown that befell the cucumber market in Russia was described by industry magazines: they say, the tense global geopolitical situation has left the greenhouse farms of the Russian Federation without a seed fund. At first, they did not want to talk to Fontanka about this at the Institute of Agricultural Market Conjuncture, referring to “a lot of things”. But in the end they gave in and named as many as three potential causes of collapse.
— Perhaps there are problems with the seed material, perhaps the parallel import was wrong, perhaps they stopped buying from Europe, they take some Chinese, it’s hard to say, – said Assistant Director General Varvara Serdyukova.
Cucumber producers stumbled not only about the lack of seeds — many of them had a so-called remortgaging in the winter. This was told in the Ivanisovo agrocomplex in the Moscow region Electrostal, which, among other manufacturers, supplies cucumbers to St. Petersburg stores and markets.
— Prices are like this not only in St. Petersburg, it’s like this everywhere — the manufacturer does not have a product, so cucumber is more expensive than caviar. Now not everyone has come out with this product. I don’t know about the others, we had a re-order: the cucumber grows for several months, then the plants get tired, you need to change the bush. That’s all. The bush changes for two or three weeks, and the harvest begins again, we will reach full capacity,” Ivanisovo shared.
And of course, no one canceled the costs of heat and sun, which farmers stage cucumber in greenhouses. Well, the capricious vegetable does not want to survive without them in winter. And the manufacturer simply does not have a chance to recapture these increased costs.
— It is necessary to heat, it is necessary to shine. There are unplanned costs, the cooler it is outside, the higher. That’s why cucumbers are so expensive. And the appetite of the manufacturer, definitely. We currently have a cucumber price of 5 rubles, which is a little less than $ 2 per option. And your Russian ones come in at 7.5 rubles, that is, three dollars per option. But our government keeps prices down, does not allow us to raise more. And Russians have the right to come at the price and in the quantity that they have,” Alexander Radkovets, director of the Berestye greenhouse plant in Belarus, told Fontanka.
It is worth noting that Belarus is the largest supplier of cucumbers to Russia: in 2021, the volume of deliveries to the Russian Federation amounted to 14.5 thousand tons at an average of $ 0.88 per kilogram. And unfortunately, the Belarusian manufacturer will not be able to save the Russian consumer right now. With all his great desire, says Alexander Radkovets:
— We will start the delivery of cucumbers to Russia from the end of February — in March. It’s just that now I have a small amount of this cucumber growing in the background, only 2.5 tons are collected per day, and everything is diverging through the local retail network. There is no possibility to supply trucks, because there is no volume. We also shot 80-100 tons of cucumber a day, when mass collections will go.
Add a spoonful of honey. Take neighboring Finland. It is almost completely devoid of the cucumber variety to which we are accustomed. In the vast majority of chain stores (and there are practically no others there) there are only two types of cucumbers: “local” and “foreign” (as a rule, Spanish). Both are long and smooth. This week, for example, in the Prisma hypermarket, the first type costs 4.99 euros per kg, the second — 3.69. And in summer, the first one costs 1.9—2.3 euros, the second one either disappears or costs 10-20 cents cheaper than local ones. Sometimes a diligent hostess (hardly Finnish) will come across a “nonconditioning” — this is what the crooked (Käyrä) cucumbers of local production are called. These are the ones that, in their appearance, do not fit into the slender Finnish ideas about cucumbers. Then completely ordinary-tasting cucumbers can be snatched for 1.8 euros even in the fierce winter. Well, sometimes you come across something with the prefix “eco”. It will cost 13-15 euros per kilogram at any time of the year. That, in fact, is all the variety. Everyone who has eaten Finnish cucumbers will not let you lie — they are tasteless, either local or Spanish. And the most desirable ones — small, crunchy, with a yellow ass and pimples — are almost nowhere to be found there for any money.
A source: https://www.fontanka.ru
