March 21 2011, 12:04 Fruit-Inform

Unprecedented growth of traditional vegetable prices still in progress in Ukraine

Fruit-Inform Project's fruit and vegetable index shows that the cost of fruit and vegetable basket of Ukrainian consumers has further increased by 2.6% over last week. This means that it has already grown by 9% since the beginning of March. Last week's price growth was experienced exclusively due to traditional borsch vegetables (onions, cabbage, beets, carrots). At the same time, greenhouse vegetable prices kept on decreasing, and fruit prices were stable.

“In the same period of last year the prices of traditional borsch vegetables (onions, cabbage, beets, carrots) showed a decreasing trend as producers disposing of stocks in unequipped storehouses managed to gain access to them and increased supply of produce to the market. However, this year's growth of prices is unprecedented as late cabbage wholesale prices has never before reached UAH 10/kg (EUR 0,90/kg), especially in March”, Andriy Yarmak, Head of Fruit-Inform Project, says. “At the same time, such a price growth is necessary in this situation to make the further exports of root crops to Russia unprofitable, attract additional import volumes of the most problematic vegetables (onions and cabbage), and stabilize the prices in future”, the expert continues.

We should also note that further increase of greenhouse vegetable supply has led to another decrease of prices. Demand for cucumbers kept on increasing due to growth of supply of the domestic produce. As to demand for tomatoes, notwithstanding price decrease, it was stagnating in expectation of first domestic produce volumes to enter the market.