Early cabbage produced in Uzbekistan has appeared this week on the supermarket shelves in the capital of Latvia, Riga. The retail price for this product is 1.99 euros per kg, which corresponds to 26,700 UZS. For comparison, retail prices for the same cabbage in Uzbekistan range from 3,000 to 4,000 UZS, which is 7-9 times less expensive than in Latvia.
According to Marite Gailite, an expert at the Association of Vegetable Growers Latvijas Dārznieks, prior to Uzbek cabbage, local supermarkets sold mostly early cabbage from Greece at 1.29 euros/kg, and in December 2023 the price was even lower – 0.89 euros per kg. Accordingly, cabbage from Uzbekistan is more expensive than the Greek cabbage.
It should be noted that the early or young cabbage is a different product than the old one and is mainly used for salads. The locally grown cabbage of late varieties harvested in 2023 is also present on the market and its price is significantly lower – ranging from 0.75 to 0.79 euros/kg.
According to EastFruit, Uzbekistan annually earns US $200-250 million from fresh, frozen, and dried vegetable exports. Cabbage provides up to 10% of this revenue, being the third most important export position after greenhouse tomatoes, with which there have been serious problems recently, and onions. At the same time, Latvia is the main market for Uzbek cabbage among the EU countries, although export volumes until recently remained relatively small due to expensive logistics. Also, recently there has been a trend of supplying trial batches of early cabbage from Uzbekistan to the Polish market.
Source: EastFruit