Despite the pandemic, most of the major Russian greenhouse enterprises are not planning on reducing the production or dismiss associates. On the contrary, some companies are planning to increase staffing because of the increase in production volume and acreage. Eco-kultura is one such enterprise.
Despite optimistic plans, one cannot claim that the current economic situation and epidemic conditions in the country did not influence functioning of the enterprise. However, every company has their own strategy of managing the crisis.
Sales director of Eco-kultura, Ms. Larisa Erina, commented on the current situation in the company.
Logistic challenges were among the first mentioned by greenhouse complex representatives in the current situation. According to Ms. Larisa Erina, Eco-kultura does not face similar issues, despite the pandemic. The vegetables are delivered on time even to the Far East. Moreover, in the nearest future Eco-kultura are planning to expand the geography of deliveries around Russia and the CIS countries.
Investment plans of the companies in the current situation were touched upon next. The agricultural holding is not planning to freeze the current projects and are going to consider new ones. For instance, this year GC Kavkaz in the Stavropol area will be launched. Currently, engineering works are done, project documentation is being worked out.
The producers have disagreements with the trade chains in relation to pricing policy. The management of AIC Eco-kultura consider that the retail prices, established by the supermarkets, are not correlating with the economic situation in the country. Trade margin on most popular vegetables reaches 100%, which exceeds the price recommended by the producers several times. In such circumstances, special legislative acts fixing the prices in supermarkets should be issued. The mentioned measure would increase the accessibility of fresh vegetables to the population. In the pandemic period, consumer demand has indeed decreased and not all people can afford buying vegetables at existing prices.
Nonetheless, as Ms. Larisa Erina reported, trade chains cannot avoid seasonal price decrease on round and plum-shaped tomatoes, related to these varieties ripening in the open field. The prices normally go down from July until the middle of September. The holding has minimum crops in their greenhouses in this period. With that, exclusive varieties of cherry and cocktail tomatoes are least influenced by the seasonal fluctuations, as their volumes in the open field are not considerable.
Source: aph-ecoculture.ru