Increasingly difficult to sell the most profitable Lithuanian berries, where farmers made a mistake

This was discussed on the Delfi 11 program.

“We farmers see that there were fewer berries imported from Greece, Spain and Poland this year. The harvest was good, but personally I was faced with the fact that people are buying badly. But when we allow ourselves to pick berries in the fields for double the price, the interest was huge. I think the purchasing power of the people has decreased, “says Vidas Juodsnukis, a strawberry and blueberry grower, and says that farmers in the Vilnius and Kaunas markets show the decline in power purchasing.
According to V. Juodsnukis, the strawberry area will be cut in half this year.

Tautvydas Gurskas contradicts his colleague and says that the difficulties of realization are problems of a separate region. Some farms even say that the crop could sell more. The exception is blueberries, the price of which dropped because the harvest was huge. The director of the association also mentions the three most profitable Lithuanian berries, which are mass-grown: strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.

However, the head of the association also mentions a chronic problem that has plagued us for a long time: we are not able to unite and supply the market with a greater quantity of harvest for which there would be buyers, because alone we cannot export and serve chains retailers.

“The fall in the price of blueberries this year is normal and will continue to fall, although it seems to have already bottomed out. Only the orchards are planted a lot and more are planted. People make irrational investments without thinking about where to harvest. More so because this berry is not used for processing, it is not frozen, it is only eaten fresh. This is its fundamental difference with the strawberries or currants that are processed. And we are growing and “clogging” the market. Before planting, you already have to think about where I will sell it ”, says T. Gurskas and warns that, in addition to farms, this shrub grows on practically all farms. A few blueberries are enough for the family and, at the same time, consumption continues to decline.

Gediminas Cijūnaitis, owner of gediminosodai.lt, agrees that a lot of blueberries have been planted, but the berries are still young and the yield will be even higher in a few years. What will happen when we harvest the maximum harvest? Nobody knows.

“Until now, our growers don’t pay attention to the growing conditions, they don’t analyze the market and they just supply the berries to the market at the same time. The earliest or late varieties should be considered, grown under cover to maintain the season as long as possible. Furthermore, it is not difficult to sell quality berries, if they are of poor quality, it is quite difficult to sell them ”, explains G. Cijūnaitis.

He points out that if the blueberries on the market are too much, but there is a shortage of late, medieval raspberries, the first and last strawberries, edible honeysuckle, blackberries and many other berries. Many niches. We only deal with some cultures so far.

“Our main problem is that we still do very little processing and then we buy jams from Germany or Poland, where we export the raw material,” says V. Juodsnukis.

G. Cijūnaitis says that, for example, in Poland, regions that grow, say, strawberries and thousands of hectares of this crop naturally form there. The entrepreneurs themselves, who are engaged in trade or processing, travel to those regions and buy crops. Export is relatively easy.

“An acquaintance asks for raspberries, but it is necessary to supply 2 t per week, we, as a separate farm, cannot cultivate that much”, says G. Cijūnaitis, the main obstacle to development.

T. Gurskas says that this is really the case when buyers come to the house and buy in bulk. Not only Lithuanians, but also Latvians. However, several neighboring Lithuanians cannot agree to raise this amount.

Buy strawberries, raspberries, but there must be large quantities. But the Lithuanians don’t want to sell together. It is a question of mentality because you fear that your neighbor will benefit from it. Another problem is when berries are brought in full quantity, but the lower quality and the distribution of profits is not like that ”, explains T. Gurskas about the errors that blocked development.

V. Juodsnukis also admits that our Achilles heel logistics and the inability to collect large quantities. Also, we cannot supply even retail chains that want increasing quantities.

T. Gurskas says that you should be interested not only in conventional crops, but also in berries such as chokeberries, sea buckthorn, medieval, sea buckthorn. The industry needs them, and if the quinces had to be closed a few years ago, they are recovering the supply and new varieties have been created where the berries are much larger.

“Today I would not choose black currants or blueberries. Everything else is interesting,” T. Gurskas mentions the market outlook.