Ukrainian heritage red borscht rose again. From April to June the price of three-liter pot meals increased by almost 20%, while only last month it grew by 3.65%. This is evidenced by the results of quarterly calculations of the Index of borscht, made specifically for “Today,” experts of the Ukrainian agrarian Confederation (UAC).
BLAME THE VEGETABLES. If in the first quarter of this year, the pot of soup cost of 43.5 UAH, the average price in the period from April to June amounted to 52.1 UAH. As of June 30, the cost of three liters of soup and all jumped to 54 UAH. “Blame, primarily vegetables, which, in spite of everything, continued to rise throughout the second half of spring. This year quite a difficult situation on the produce market shortage of products, bad weather conditions and the prolonged offseason played a role, and has not led to the expected decrease in prices, but rather to rapid growth. In addition, it is worth noting the recovery in exports, particularly potatoes — it also keeps prices from declining,” — said us analyst UAK Dmitry Dane. He also added that if the first and second quarter (see infographic) the most expensive ingredient in the recipe of the soup was tomato (38,3 UAH/kg or of 7.64 UAH for three quarts of soup), at the end of June, the palm went to the cabbage. Today at the white accounts for 12% of the cost of meals or 6.7 UAH (UAH of 16.86/kg). However, over the last ten days of June, prices of vegetables went down. Dane connects it with the growth of supply. “Potatoes fell on average by 17.9 percent (to 10.04 UAH/kg), carrots — by 11.4% (to 14.27 UAH/kg), beet — by 16.6% (to 9.15 UAH/kg), onion — by 16.9% (to 11.11 UAH/kg). Only the price of cabbage remained almost at the same level (+2.4 per cent; of 16.86 UAH/kg), although the background of growth of the previous weeks (+74% in 20 days) it looks pretty optimistic,” sums up Dane. In this expert worried the most expensive ingredient in the recipe of soup of pork (97,11 UAH/kg), which is not going to go down.
FORECAST. “The current situation in the pig does not have to decrease prices. Reduction of population, the rising cost of production and the persistence of African swine fever — all of this continues to push prices up,” — said the Dane. Vegetables the experts ‘ forecasts are more optimistic — in the future we can expect continuation of falling prices, albeit not too sharp and long. “Most likely, the lower prices will last about two-three weeks, and then gradually stabiliziruemost,” explains the Dane. The head of the Ukrainian Association of trade networks suppliers Oleksiy Doroshenko believes that African swine fever, on the contrary, will help in the short term to reduce the price of pork for 10 hryvnia. This situation stems from the fact that affected farmers will still try to sell the meat, reducing the price: “But traditional set of vegetables will decline in price until September. Then — even bet, because from year to year prices in early autumn are unpredictable”.
