Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Largest Russian grower of strawberries unable to sell all harvested volumes
Interfax informs that Sovkhoz im. Lenina located near Moscow, the largest grower of strawberries in Russia (103 ha), had to stop strawberry harvesting due to problems with sales.
Mr. Pavel Grudinin, Director of the farm, says that Moscow Government permitted Sovkhoz im. Lenina to place stalls near underground stations for direct sales of perishable products to consumers last year. However, Moscow Office of Federal Antimonopoly Service has found law violation in the permission, and stalls have not been placed this year.
«We have not received any positive result from bureaucratic maze yet, and now we are waiting for a resolution from Moscow Government, which sessions are held on Tuesdays», says Mr. Grudinin. «There have been no sessions held this week, and we wait for a next one. But we harvest strawberries every day, and berries cannot wait for a resolution, as their shelf life reaches two days at most, and harvesting peak lasts only two weeks».
A Sovkhoz im. Lenina's official has confirmed this information during an interview with Fruit-Inform. A source says that the situation is aggravated by no berry cooling technologies applied in the farm. Lack of technologies significantly reduces strawberry shelf life and makes shipments to other regions impossible. As a result, it is very difficult to sell strawberries to supermarket chains, and their main sales channels are weekend fairs, unorganized markets and small middlemen.
As a result of problems with sales, the farm has to leave a part of its strawberry crop in fields. According to Mr. Grudinin, Sovkhoz im. Lenina's current daily strawberry outputs stand at 60 tons, and the farm manages to sell only 40 tons of them. In comparison, Sovkhoz im. Lenina harvested 80-90 tons of strawberries per day and managed to sell more than 70 tons of those volumes last year.