July 25 2007, 17:13

Ukraine: purchase prices for gherkin and pickling jumped up

The controversial situation is observed on cucumber market of Ukraine. Two weeks ago the producers told about almost complete absence of demand and dramatically low prices for cucumber, which did not cover even the expenses for crop harvesting. In this regard some farmers even gave up harvesting the grown cucumbers.

As of today, to the opinion of the specialists of ""Agrooglyad: Vegetables and Fruits" weekly", the declined supply of cucumbers for processing needs from the farmers made the canneries activate the purchases and reconsider the purchase prices upwards.

The enterprises are setting now the prices for gherkin in sufficiently broad range, $ 0.26/kg to $0.5/kg because of the different quality of cucumber supplied on market. To compare: past year the processors declared the purchase prices up to $0.4/kg for this type of raw material; the most part of purchases was done for $0.2/kg. The canneries set the purchase price for pickling on the level of $0.5-0.6/kg; this price almost corresponds to the past year data. But, half a month ago the prices were significantly lower.

The main reason of the price growth is a long-lasing drought in the southern, central and eastern regions of Ukraine; as a result almost all harvest of cucumbers just "burnt" in many farms, which produce this crop on non-irrigated fields. Because of the same reason cucumber quality is affected even in the farms, which apply modern production technologies. At the same time, the demand for standard field cucumber both from the side of freshmarket and the processing enterprises is still lower than the supply. That's why the prices do not normally exceed $0.06-0.12/kg. We'd like to remind that this season almost all canneries have reduced the volumes of cucumber purchase; the processing of gherkin and pickling only is included to the plans of the majority of the enterprises. The most part of plants do not plan to process cucumber at all; they are just selling the overstocks of the products manufactured in 2006.