Cheese boom: how the embargo changed Russian market

However, the collapse did not happen, on the contrary — according to market participants, the manufacture of cheese in the country from 2013 to 2015 increased by 75%, and import decreased two times, the cheese-makers learned to make excellent burrata and mozzarella. Manufacturers of cheese, the chef and owner of the cheese shop told how sanctions have forever changed the concept of "Russian cheese".

Significant changes have occurred lately on the cheese market in Russia, said general director of CJSC "Umalat" Alexey Martynenko. "Our own cheese production in the country increased by 74% from 310 thousand tons in 2013 to 547 thousand tons in 2015. The share of imports in the same period decreased significantly from 58% to 19% by the end of 2015. This proves that the cheese industry has undergone major changes and, obviously, in favor of domestic producers", — he said.

"Until August 2014, more than 90% of Valio products for the Russian market were produced in Finland, the other 10% were products from Estonia and produced in Russia. When the embargo was introduced tremendous work has been done within two years: Valio has increased the production of processed cheese in Russia 2.5 times, and the total production volume in 2015 increased by 30%. 2016 was the year of growth, we presented more than 30 new products on the Russian market," — said the press service of LLC "Valio".

Alexander Krupetskov, the Head of the project "Cheese sommelier" tells about the changes for better on the market.

"If immediately after the introduction of the food embargo the amount of cheese on supermarket shelves has decreased significantly and there were a lot of cheese products made of palm oil, now it has become much easier to find high-quality cheese," he says.

Today, artisan cheese factories appear like mushrooms after rain, and most of them make high-quality cheeses with a rather nice creamy taste — nothing outstanding, but quite a decent natural product, claims Krupetskov. "Statistics show that 99% of the population of Russia needs just such cheese," — said the expert.

Sanctions have a definite advantage – it is the ability to produce own cheeses, and to work with own raw materials, said the brand-chef of the bar "Praktika" Nikolay Kochetov. "We have learned to make the burrata, mozzarella and stracciatella. In my opinion, the quality of these cheeses produced in Russia is very high," he says.

However, the situation with mature cheese, like Parmesan, is sad, adds Kochetov. "It is impossible to establish the production of this cheese during several years, to reveal the secrets and learn the centuries-old traditions of those places where people have been accumulating knowledge for centuries. Among the analogues, you can see a lot of decent products, but for an experienced customer it is not easy to find a worthy replacement. In my opinion, there is no replacement made by Russian producers to many European cheeses today, but is it primarily concerns mature cheeses," he explains.

There are few analogs of unusual cheeses, the former hallmark of Europe, in Russia, adds the Head of the project "Cheese sommelier", but Russia is already making a decent cheese, the level of which begins to approach that of Europe. "Basically, these are cheeses, the maturation of which does not require a long time. Mostly they are made on small factories, and therefore the amounts of these cheeses are small, you won’t meet them in the supermarket, you should hunt for them in small shops," he adds.

According to Martynenko, if you take the cheese market in general you can replace about 90% of cheese — the remaining 10% include Parmesan, brie, a number of French varieties that are unique either due to the production technology, or have a protected title. However, in other cases, the Russian producers have managed to advance far — mainly thanks to foreign experts.

"Production of cheese is a technically difficult thing, we wouldn't be able to do anything if we didn’t have an Italian engineer with a world name at the plant, as there are a lot of technological nuances that are impossible to recreate in the production of this product," he adds.

According to Martynenko, at the time of the imposition of sanctions he was about to close the cheese project due to the complexity and capital intensity of production, however, food embargo changed everything. "After the imposition of sanctions, at a certain point, the demand twice exceeded the volume of our production, and then it became clear that we can stay in the area and continue to develop production. Over the past two years, we were able to increase production by 11-13% per year, we recently opened a shop for packing fresh cheese, invested more than 300 million rubles", — he said.

Kochetov adds that as a citizen of the country he is looking negative at cancellation of the embargo.

"Our producers have just began to do something in this regard, they have definitely benefited from sanctions and I hope they will be useful in the future," argues chief, but notes that he would like to have the opportunity to purchase the European products, which have no analogues in Russia.

In the press-service "Valio" they add that they are not ready to give forecasts in this respect. "Since 2014, there are a lot of rumors both about the lifting of sanctions and about the extension. But if the economic situation changes, then we have different scenarios of business development in Russia," said in the company.

Krupetskov from "Cheese sommelier" argues that he doesn’t monitor the situation in the area of Western sanctions and counter-embargo. "If they cancel — I will be very happy and if not I will not be too upset. Now we are creating our own strategy based on the current situation taking to account that the sanctions are not for a long time, and so, we will continue to look for interesting Russian cheeses. Now Russian cheese is a trend, and we're following it," he says.

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