Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Ukraine: cucumber prices reach record high
Cucumber prices in the Ukrainian market have reached their historic high, reports Fruit-Inform.
Fruit-Inform's daily monitoring shows an average increase of 25% in them since the beginning of this week. Now sellers offer high-quality cucumbers at UAH 50-60/kg (EUR 1.52-1.82/kg), and those of lower quality are sold at least at UAH 46/kg (EUR 1.39/kg). For comparison, a week before cucumber prices were no higher than UAH 45/kg (EUR 1.36/kg).
Traders explain this price trend by several factors. Firstly, it is linked to a growth in prices in Turkey, currently almost the only supplier of cucumbers to Ukraine. Moreover, Turkish shipments are relatively small and irregular, which also affects prices in the Ukrainian market.
Overall, current prices are 50-60% higher than in the second half of December 2016. However, sellers consider price increase to be the source of negative impact on demand. Retail chains have already minimized their purchase volumes, referring to extremely low retail sales rates. In addition, buyers more often remain unsatisfied with the quality of offered cucumbers.