Food Briefs

The Moscow supermarket chain Sedmoy Kontinent (“Seventh Continent”) said  it plans to open 10 more supermarkets in the capital by year’s end-- four opened in August 2001, the remainder are to open in November and December. The company projects 50% growth in sales this year, and a 150% increase between now and the end of 2002. Vladimir Karnaukhov, a company director, said that the supermarket sector in Moscow has huge potential, because 40% of Muscovites still shop at open air markets. Apparently several western firms agree. The German Metro chain has recently joined other major market players like the Turkish-owned Ramstore, and France’s Auchan also has designs on the market. In terms of per capita spending ($2000 per year) and annual sales turnover ($25 bn) the city of Moscow is now comparable with the entirety of Poland, which has been experiencing a supermarket boom.

Russia stopped fishing for Caspian sturgeon on July 20, 2001, as part of an international effort to save the fish which produce black caviar. The move was announced by deputy head of the State Fisheries Committee Anatoly Makoyedov, and stems from an agreement reached last month under the UN-Affiliated Convention on International Trade in Endangered species.

Suzdal was the site for the first-ever Day of the Cucumber. As Suzdal Mayor Alexander Illarionov told Izvestia, “the cucumber serves as a symbol of our residents’ well-being—because half of them grow this vegetable in their gardens.” According to Illarionov, before Russia started importing fresh vegetables in the early 1990s, only a lousy gardener could not earn enough on greenhouse-grown cucumbers to buy a new Volga.

Vice-Premier in charge of Agriculture, Alexei Gordeev, speaking at a special Moscow’s exhibit “Russian Food Products-2001” said that, whereas four years ago Russia imported 40% of its food from abroad, today that figure is just 20%. What is more, domestic food production has increased by 10%, across the full range of foodstuffs.

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Moscow’s Slavjanskaya-Radisson hotel marked its 10th anniversary by baking what it claims is the world’s longest cake. The cake measured 144 meters long, 66 cm wide and weighed some four tons. It was baked by the hotel’s Deputy Master Chef, Luc Decupiere. His recipe required 21,860 eggs, 1074 kilograms of sugar, half a ton of flour, 720 kilograms of cherry jam, 234 liters of water, and 900 grams of salt. The cake took four days to bake and has been included in Russia’s Record Book, and application is being submitted to the Guinness Book of Records. Pieces of the cake were sold on the anniversary day with proceeds donated to charity. PARI, which keeps track of all Russian records of this nature, noted other significant Russian gastronomic achievements: the world’s largest pryanik (3 meters in diameter) featured a detailed map of St. Petersburg and was presented to Empress Catherine the Great in commemoration of that city’s 75th anniversary by bakers from Tula, where the cookie was invented. The largest-ever kulebyaka pie (305.9 meters long) was baked in Moscow in 2001 by Vladimir Mikhailov.

Moscow’s annual Beer Festival in July offered thousands a welcome respite from a record-breaking heatwave. The nine-day extravaganza featured the usual assemblage of local and foreign brewers, offering their best brews while revelers enjoyed music, food and just generally a good time. Prices were up a bit from last year’s norm. And several companies made their first appearance at the festival this year, including Arsenalnoye from Tula and Bavaria’s Paulaner. Indeed, Bavaria's Economy Minister, Otto Wiesheu, came to the event’s opening and presented Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov with a special hammer for tapping beer kegs. Meanwhile, the indefatigable sculptor Zurab Tsereteli said he wants to raise a monument to beer—a beer mug--in Luzhniki. Luzhkov has reportedly approved the idea. Even though the teetotaling mayor does not drink bear, he did say that beer is the beverage which eases people's minds, "not like your vodyara" (a pejorative term for vodka).

Over the last four years, the Russian beer market has been growing by 25% a year. But this year most brewers expect sales to increase just 15%.

million dcl

year

1985            350   

1996 200

1997 252

1998    324,5

1999    430

2000   549,4

2001 (projection)620