February 25 2008, 10:36

Russia: Local produce will replace Chinese frozen vegetables starting from this week

Since today "UGMK-Agro" has been launching the line of frozen vegetables under Mister Green trademark on the market of Sverdlovskaya region, "JustMedia" portal informs. To the opinion of the company representatives, locally grown vegetables are able to "conquer" a good share of Chinese, Hungarian and Polish imports.

According to Constantin Chelovechkov, Deputy Director of the company, the shortest haul distance is one of the key advantages of Mister Green TM. Vegetable transportation from China often takes a month; the products of "UGMK-Agro" are supplied for packing in several days after the harvesting. Also, due to the own raw material base the company can guarantee the absence of GMO products.

"The products are parboiled and at once directed to flash freezing. The line consists of three types of vegetable mixes, cauliflower, broccoli and potato, our key product. It does not look like the ordinary frozen French fries which you see on the supermarket shelves: we don not roast potato in fat. And, you can even cook mashed potato from the pieces of our product", Mr. Chelovechkov says.

According to Roman Pavkner, Deputy Director on Commercial Issues, "UGMK-Agro", middle class is the target audience of the product: those people will buy frozen vegetables who have not much time to spend it in kitchen but who still want to eat fresh products. The average price of Mister Green pack of potato, 750 g each, is around $ 2.04-2.25/kg. Seven hundred fifty grams of "UGMK-Agro" product are worth to 1.5-2 kg of fresh bulbs of potato.