Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev recently visited an OJSC Magnit grocery store to check on the range of goods and prices after Russia banned food imports from the US and other countries last month.
Medvedev noted that the store in Korenovsk, north-east of the Black Sea, offered a selection of local apples, according to the RIA news service, which followed the visit. He then spotted a box of grapes from Turkey.
"From Turkey isn’t criminal,” he said, according to RIA, “but it’d be better, of course, if it were grown here."
Medvedev’s visit underlines concern about the prospect that Russians will lack affordable food options because grocery stores lost access to meat, cheese, fish, and fruit and vegetables from the US, the European Union, Norway, Canada and Australia. Medvedev’s spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, said that the prime minister would now make such store visits regularly.
President Vladimir Putin announced the import ban on 6 August, striking back at sanctions against Russia over its role in the Ukraine conflict. Russia has turned to Turkey, China and Latin American countries to replace banned food imports.
Customers at the store told Medvedev that they were content with food prices, according to RIA. On 20 August, the Russian Federal Statistics Service reported that the country’s weekly consumer price index had increased 0.1 per cent, after standing at zero for the previous three weeks. Retailers may have raised prices early in anticipation, Raiffeisenbank analysts said in note to clients on 21 August.
Bloomberg News, edited by ESM
