August 3 2006, 17:23

Zakarpattya picklings are exported to Hungary

Zakarpattya region is characterized by the highest concentration of processing enterprises; cucumber constitutes 70% of raw materials purchased by these enterprises. This year gross harvest of cucumber cheered up processing enterprises which have been suffering from lack of raw material in recent years. Now, in the peak of cucumber season, enterprises can decline purchase prices. In the previous years the processors only increased the preliminary set purchase prices.

Cucumber supply exceeds demand in the region because of several main reasons: favorable weather conditions, consequent high yield, extended cultivation areas of cucumber, and lower than expected demand. Newly constructed processing plant BEREG FOODS has not facilitated the processing capacity for planned cucumber volumes; in fact, this cannery has not even start processing cucumber. This enterprise purchased only trial shipments of raw materials, but the producers counted on the cucumber sales to this cannery. The other reason is that several farms have been recently established in Zakarpattya; they have started to grow cucumber on trellis for the first time this year on the acreage of 3-10 ha. Now they can supply 20-100 tons of picklings a day, but there are no stable sales.

Hungarians are the co-owners of major canneries in Zakarpattya; so both personal and business relations with the neighboring country are very well set. This year Zakarpattya enterprises send trucks with Ukrainian picklings to Hungarian processing plants. Vice versa, the processors imported cucumbers from Hungary past year. Small wholesalers from Hungary also come to Ukraine to purchase picklings, but they pay $0.1/kg less than processing enterprises do.

Zakarpattya canneries preliminary agreed to purchase up to 5,500 tons of cucumbers for processing, according to information of Zakarpattya office of the Agricultural Marketing Project. As to specialists' assessments, gross cucumber harvest 2005 reached 3,000 tons.