November 3 2006, 11:59

The demand for "borsch" vegetables remains low on Ukrainian market

According to information of the produce business players, the demand for potato, carrot, table beets and carrot remains low and insufficient on Ukrainian market. This fact again confirms our forecast of the significant production growth for these crops in 2006.

During this week the price trends have been mixed for each of the mentioned commodities. It is caused, first of all, by the diversified price trends which depend on the produce quality. For example, the prices for quality potato remained stable; they even got a little more steady. The price for low quality potato continued decreasing, because this potato does not suit for storage. The price decrease for poor quality vegetables of all commodity groups continued this week. Bulb onion and pepper belong to the commodity group too as the producers rushed to sell out the remaining volumes before frosts.

So, we can suppose that by early December practically no free volumes of low-quality vegetables will remain on Ukrainian market. The share of quality vegetables in trade turnover will grow; as a result, average prices for these vegetables will grow too. At the same time, in the long-term perspective we should not expect the rapid price growth for vegetables loaded to the storages, as it was observed in season 2005/06.

The detailed price forecast for the current season will be presented in the first day of the third international conference "Fruits and Vegetables of Ukraine 2006. Open Market".