Supermarket Shelves in St. Petersburg Empty of Imported Goods
A week after Russian authorities banned the import of certain types of products from the United States, EU, Canada, Australia and Norway, St. Petersburg supermarkets that stock a large share of imported goods are showing the impact the ban is having. Imported fish, meat and dairy products have all but disappeared, Fontanka.ru reports, with many of the products remaining on the shelves the last of the current stock. As the foreign goods run out, many stores have begun to expand the proportion of domestically-produced products.
Udderly Gone
Many supermarkets in St. Petersburg no longer have any dairy products remaining on their shelves from the Finnish company Valio, whose cheese and butter have been available in St. Petersburg shops since the Soviet era. At the Prisma supermarket on the Vyborg Schosse, local residents have been scrambling to buy as much as they can before it disappears completely.
"The excitement began last Thursday,? said a worker in the diary department at Prisma. ?Valio products are the most sought but people are even buying things they wouldn?t have given a second glance before. Finnish cheese will soon be gone. Everything that we have is on the shelves with a bit left in the stockroom."
Valio products manufactured at the company?s facilities in Finland and Estonia will no longer be seen in supermarket cold cases, with the products made at company?s Gatchina and Ershovo locations hard pressed to fill the void.
"Naturally, the two plants are not enough and we will have to make up for the shortfall somehow,? said the unidentified Prisma employee.
Empty shelves were seen where, until recently, Norwegian Jarlsberg, Latvian Karums dairy desserts and Tere Estonian sour cream once stood.
At the Metro Cash and Carry on Kosygin Prospekt, which mainly serves small-scale wholesale buyers, empty shelves remained where a week earlier Baltais sour cream from Latvia and puddings from the Swiss company Nestle, which has 11 Russia factories, could be found. Metro was also out of Italian Parmesan, Lithuanian Roxburgh, French Roquefort and Austrian blue cheeses. There was no Valio yogurt left among the few pots of Landlibe and Baltais product.
Shoppers have been snapping up Alterman cheese and Valio?s processed cheese, Viola. Cheese sold under the Finnish store-brand Pirkko has disappeared as well.
The Land premium supermarket chain has gradually been increasing the supply of Russian dairy products in proportion to the decrease in the share of imports. ?We specifically label them as farm products so that people know they are of Russian origin.?
A Different Kettle of Fish
Prisma, meanwhile, has no fresh Norwegian trout or salmon. In their place, the supermarket is selling fish from Karelia and Murmansk. "People used to buy Norwegian fish a piece at a time. Now they are buying whole fish, sometimes several,? said an employee in the store?s fish department.
As of Thursday, Metro still had Norwegian trout.
"This is the last, there is no more in stock,? said a metro employee. ?Take it while it?s here. The Norwegian salmon is already gone. We are replacing it with fish from Murmansk and Vladivostok."
Sitting nearby, however, was an aquarium full of torpid lobsters from the United States as well as a pile of French shrimp on ice. At 2400 rubles ($66.62) per kilogram, however, there aren?t many takers.
Land has run out of French shrimp, oysters and lobsters entirely. The head of the fish department said that while some Norwegian salmon and trout remains, there is no way to know how long stocks will last.
"We haven?t seen any excitement,? he said. ?Things have been calm." Another staff member was more outspoken, making it clear that the Norwegian fish would soon be gone.
Upsetting the Apple Cart
While Land still has a few Dutch carrots, Dutch peppers and Spanish avocados, much of the French produce has already disappeared.
"We have begun ordering Serbian apples, and zucchini and cucumbers from Krasnodar. There is a special corner with locally-produced vegetables. It?s always been there but has never been so full. We are planning to stock more vegetables and fruit from Belarus and the Tver region," according to a store representative.
Meanwhile, Metro still has plenty of imported lemons, while Spanish nectarines have run out. Strangely, the shelves containing pineapples from Costa Rica stand empty despite the fact that the country is not among the banned producers.
There was never much foreign meat or meat products in local stores. However, Prisma admitted that they while they had had beef from Denmark, it is now gone. Metro, which has a department dedicated to high-end sausage, in which some imported goods such as Beretta ham from Italy could once be found, has distributed its remaining stock across emptying shelves. While the price tags remain, the Italian ham and Spanish jamon are long gone.