What is wrong with the prices of cucumbers: why they are rising in price

Rosstat’s report on September inflation in Russia shows that against the backdrop of the “borscht set” becoming cheaper in the summer, cucumbers showed a rise in prices – by as much as 31 percent. This exception to the rule could be written off as a common anomaly in which the Russian economy is rich. But there was an anomaly with the cucumber in the spring too, when all the vegetables went up in price, but it became noticeably cheaper.

“Now it’s better to buy not short cucumbers,” one customer in the supermarket advises me, “But these long, parthenocarpics are called. Short ones only seem real, unpaved, but their season has already passed. You cut them open, and inside they are white, even yellow, they don’t even smell like a cucumber, and there’s no taste.

– And these, – she points to the parthenocarpic, – are real, they can be preserved.

Generally speaking, from the cucumber arsenal on the trading shelves, eyes run wide. Short, long, medium, smooth, with pimples, with a yellow spot on the side and without…

It is difficult to say how Rosstat calculated the “arithmetic mean” increase in the price of such a vegetable last month. It’s not even “the average temperature in the hospital.” Indeed, now a short cucumber of quite a good presentation (which the customer does not advise me to take) costs 150 rubles per kilogram. Exactly the same, but already a little lying on the counter, up to 70.

Let’s look further. Medium-fruited smooth cucumber – 79 rubles a kilo, the same, but with pimples 92, ground from 78 to 230 rubles, gherkins 400 rubles a kilogram, but just a “long cucumber” – 40 rubles a piece

Here’s how to calculate the price spread here? And what in the current period is preferable in terms of taste and vitamin qualities?

Many are inclined to think that long (greenhouse) ones are now more “real” and therefore they are more useful. There is a strong argument for this: the ecology in the greenhouse is better, there are no pests there, which means that there is no need to treat the plantings with chemical reagents. Greenhouse plants have no connection with the outside world at all. And that is worth a lot these days. In the literal and figurative sense.

In all respects, it turns out that there is no competitor to such a vegetable, it will continue to rise in price. Especially against the background of noticeably cheaper root crops.

– Root crops come to the shelves directly from the field, but for cucumbers the story is completely different, – says Andrey Kazakov, executive director of the Fruit and Vegetable Union. – Open ground cucumbers have already departed for the season, we are switching to growing indoors. Naturally, this entails an increase in the price of products. In the summer, the costs are much less. And now we need additional lighting and heating in greenhouses, to maintain a constant microclimate there.

About how the prices for cucumbers and tomatoes can rise by the New Year, he answers evasively. But this trend continues. If for cucumbers we almost completely switched to self-sufficiency, then we import tomatoes in volumes of 40%. If the dollar rises in price, which cannot be ruled out, then prices will also change – primarily for foreign tomatoes.

Something third is not given. The smaller the offer, the higher the price of the product, respectively. We are not Turkey, where there is a lot of sun, in Russia the days are getting shorter, greenhouses need additional lighting and warmth – these are expenses that are reflected in store prices and on our wallet.

People often ask what kind of cucumbers are the future in Russia? Most likely, the usual ground fade into the background. We do not have so many beds that they ripen with lashes under the sun. Even the famous Lukhovitsky cucumber – short and with pimples – is grown by many farmers in home-grown greenhouses. Although it is considered a real ground.

But the rapid growth in production is shown by long and medium-sized cucumbers grown in industrial greenhouses, where there is a lot of artificial light and instead of ordinary soil, some kind of hydrophonics and nutrient mixtures. In recent years, 250 billion rubles have been invested in the creation of greenhouse complexes in Russia. Last year, the greenhouse area increased by another 6% and reached 3.2 thousand hectares. In 2021, a record was set: 830 thousand tons of cucumbers were produced. They turned around in full breadth, because it is known that a Russian person harnesses slowly, but drives fast. We can say that cucumbers are almost completely gone from imports. We import only 4%, and even those during the off-season.

Against the background of a noticeable rise in the price of this vegetable, one joy remains: they are our own, domestic. And maybe someday, additional lighting in industrial greenhouses in autumn and winter will not hit our pockets so much.