In the current season, Ukraine may increase imports of frozen strawberry garden strawberries.

“The season of Ukrainian wild strawberries this year lasted a little more than a month, that is, 2-3 weeks less than in the previous 3-4 years. The late start is the result of a cool spring, and the premature end is due to extreme weather conditions in June, according to which the producers of the Western and Central regions received a significantly lower yield than a year ago.

The quality of the berry leaves much to be desired again, due to excessive humidity in June. In this regard, the processing enterprises were not able to procure the required amount of local raw materials and therefore are forced to import it, ”says Tatyana Getman, head of the Analytics department of the Shuvar ORSP in Lviv.

As an alternative, Ukrainian processing enterprises are considering frozen strawberries from Egypt, in Ukraine today it is offered at 1.1-1.3 euros / kg. Egyptian frozen strawberries compensate for the shortage of local raw materials and enterprises in the EU.

“Autumnal” wild strawberries are gradually appearing in wholesale markets; farms in the South and Transcarpathia began to collect it at the end of last week. As of July 23, 2019, in the largest wholesale market in Western Ukraine, ORU “Shuvar”, wild strawberries are offered at 60-70 UAH / kg (2.0-2.4 Euro / kg), which is 30% more expensive than a year back.

In total, from the beginning of the season, 3.6 thousand tons of garden strawberries have been sold at the site of the Shuvar ORSP, which is the largest volume in the last 5 years.