March 28 2006, 10:10

Early vegetable season has started in Ukraine; first set of early cabbage came to Odesa supermarkets

According to the information provided by Dmitrij Chernyak, the Market Information Specialist of the Agricultural Marketing Project to "Agrooglyad: Vegetables and Fruits" journal, first set of locally produced early cabbage is supplied today to the largest Odesa supermarket "Aeroportovsky" owned by TAVRIA-B retail chain.

As Dmitrij Chernyak says, cabbage was supplied by the private producers from Izmail rayon, the southernmost rayon of Odesa oblast. The retail price on this product is now $ 4.5-4.7/kg. There is other early cabbage for sale in the same supermarket, it costs now cheaper, about $3.5/kg.

According to the messages from early vegetable producers from the southern rayons of Odesa oblast, first large sets of early cabbage will start to be supplied on market in 10 days, approximately by April 8th-9th . At this time first sets of Ukrainian early cabbage are expected to come to Kyiv wholesale market too.

To the opinion of Andriy Yarmak, the Deputy Director of the Agricultural Marketing Project, first sets of early vegetables for sale serve as a powerful psychological factor influencing the prices on all other kinds of produce. Sales of past year harvest vegetables usually start to decrease after the first supplies of national early cabbage, despite of the relatively high prices on early produce. As a rule, from the moment of first supply on market in mid April till mid May early cabbage price decreases thrice; by the end of May early cabbage reaches the price level of the past year cabbage. By this time cabbage of past year harvest will fail to meet any demand.

So, the started season of early vegetables hurries up the producers to sell the stocks of past year cabbage. They are to take the advantage of rather high prices on past year cabbage, though the trend of price decrease on this product has been traced recently.