Judgment day product number 1: the rise in prices of the buckwheat has broken all records

Analysts explained the "buckwheat phenomenon", which showed an unprecedented rise in prices this spring. According to Rosstat, this year the prices for buckwheat in Russia have set another record. It has risen in price 1.7 times - up to 87.1 rubles per kilogram.

According to experts, the most rapid rise in prices for this product occurred simultaneously with the introduction of restrictive measures on coronavirus.

On the eve of the lockdown, Russians rushed to sweep essential and long-term storage goods into store shelves, among which buckwheat turned out to be one of the most popular positions. This led to a temporary shortage of the product in the retail network.

“In late February and early March, people were running around the shops and buying up goods that could be stored for a long time. They bought the so-called “doomsday goods”. Buckwheat probably took the first place among them, ”Leonid Kholod, Doctor of Economics, former Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, commented on Sputnik radio.

According to him, after a while the price of the scarce product dropped slightly, but did not return to the “pre-crisis” positions.

“This was due to the fact that there was a demand for buckwheat, but supply lagged behind, and this led to an increase in prices. The second reason was that the buckwheat stock was undermined. It was bought more than it was in the warehouse”, - the economist commented on the situation with buckwheat.

In his opinion, a new round of prices for buckwheat should not be expected, but in the future it is unlikely to fall in price to the “pre-coronavirus” level.

As previously reported, in the spring, the rush demand for long-term storage products, including cereals and canned meat, forced their manufacturers to increase production and work at capacity limits. In particular, the production of buckwheat then increased by almost 50%.

A similar situation developed during that period with rice. However, then there was a "lull", and prices for these products began to slide down.

In order not to go bankrupt, the producers of cereals were forced to temporarily reduce their work in order to start production only after receiving the raw materials of the new harvest.

This decision of the manufacturers was due to the fact that the representatives of retail chains, who made significant stocks of long-term storage goods, significantly reduced the volume of applications for the purchase of new consignments of goods.