Just with the fertility of its famous black earth, Ukraine could easily help meet the world’s ever-growing demand for good-quality and nutritious food, fueled by rapid population growth.
But Ukraine could also super-charge its agricultural potential by using innovations in every step of the food production process, from planting to recycling waste, speakers at this year’s Kyiv Post Tiger Conference said during the outbreak Food Story panel at the InterContinental hotel in Kyiv on Dec. 11.
These were among the hot topics discussed n the panel, which was moderated by John Wiles, technical portfolio strategy leader in the Integrated Field Sciences division at the research & development organization for Corteva Agriscience at Corteva.
Ukraine’s consumption trends, and innovations in growing and tracing the origin of food, as well as waste management, were discussed by the two other panelists – Olesya Olenytska, director of government relations and public affairs at METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine, and Dmytro Borysov, chef and owner of the Borysov restaurant chain.
Olenytska noted several trends seen in the past few years. One of the most noticeable is increasingly health-conscious consumption, with foods with lower sugar content, no gluten or lactose becoming more popular.
At the same time, in the big cities Ukrainians have started to buy more foods that are high in calories.
“Compared to last year, Ukrainians are buying more meat, dairy products, and eggs in the big cities, so the trend is moving towards more calorific foods. They’ve spent 19 percent more (on them) this year,” said Olenytska.
The most negative trend for Ukraine, according to Wiles, is the expensiveness of the food, since low Ukrainian incomes mean not many can afford expensive foods.
“Food prices are high, and people spend a high proportion of their salary (on food) in Ukraine,” Wiles said.
Borysov, who owns more than 20 restaurants, said that nearly 80 percent of Ukrainians buy and cook food for themselves, while in the Western countries the situation is the opposite.
For that reason, restaurant and consumer food spending are significantly different, he said. Ukrainian suppliers, oriented to the mass market, can’t meet higher-end demand.
“Our customers in restaurants want salmon, steaks or oysters. We even have to buy pork in Poland. So, we need to develop the market of products in Ukraine, because the country has a great potential,” said Borysov.
One of the most urgent problems that Ukraine is still failing to answer is food waste management. According to Wiles, some 30 percent of food is wasted, which is unacceptable given that every tenth Ukrainian needs food aid because of the war in the east of the country.
“There are no centralized companies, neither public nor private, that can deal with (food) waste disposal in Ukraine. For example, our restaurants make around a ton a day of a cabbage waste alone,” said Borysov.
