UrBC, Yekaterinburg, August 17, 2010. ‘The forest fires and the draughts experienced by the better part of Russia’s agricultural regions is the reason the food manufacturers and suppliers have announced an increase in wheat and crops-based food items like bread, pastry, flour, pasta, and sunflower-seen oil as well as milk. The increase comes to 10% to 30% on the federal level and to 5% to 20% in the Urals,’ Metro Cash & Carry’s Corporate and Public Relations Director Oksana Tokareva said to UrBC reporters.
‘We started getting suggestions that the price for the said items should be raised as early as the beginning of last week. At the moment, Metro Cash & Carry Russia isn’t raising the essential grocery prices and keeps a watchful eye on the market. In the Urals, the announced price increases were highest at Kamensk-Uralskiy bread-making plant (20%). The rest of the food suppliers, both in Sverdlovsk Region and in the other parts of the Urals where Metro operates, declared their prices would go up by 4% to 15%. This is true of bread-making companies as well,’ she added.