Did you know real cheese is banned upon America?
Did you know Poccur makes its own cheese?
"Cheese dealers tear off the price of almost 20 euros per kilo from Oltermann - revealed to the supplier who presented the customer how the cheese crosses the Russian border"
Yle interviewed cheese dealers who supply cheeses to Russia. One said that the cheeses travel from Finland to Russia in trucks.
Now the cheese dealers are talking
Yle targeted a total of 17 sellers who sell Finnish cheeses online. Two of them agreed to be interviewed and tell how they get their cheeses when the coronavirus restricts entry to Finland.
Some of the vendors are ordinary shoppers selling cheeses from their own refrigerators.
- Cheese best before 12/2020. Hurry up! There will be no more deliveries, read, for example, in one of Avito's announcements.
Two cheese salespeople who responded to Yle said they don’t have many cheeses on the market. One of the sellers said there are only two cheeses left. His price per kilo of Oltermanni is 14.81 euros.
As few sellers responded directly to the interview request, Yle's journalist pretended to be a buyer of the cheese and asked if it was possible to continue to get cheeses from the same seller.
The Journalist's cover-up task paid off.
Cheese dealer Yle: The cheese comes to Russia by truck
Next, the supplier approached the cheese sellers at Avito as a regular buyer for whom the freshness of the cheese is important. A total of five cheese vendors responded to Yle.
- I would like to buy 1 kg of Oltermanni cheese. Could you bring a fresh song, the reporter asked "Andrei" from St. Petersburg, whose announcement promises "deliveries every week."
Andrei didn’t have a big Oltermanni chunk on offer, only 250 gram pieces. The price of these was four euros.
The lack of selection allowed the supplier to bargain and ask for more. Deliveries are successful and the seller promises to deliver more cheeses to the buyer.
- Yes, we can bring in five days, said the seller.
The supplier, who pretended to be the next buyer, wanted to know how the cheeses would be transported to Russia during the Korona period. The supplier asked directly whether the cheeses were transported from Finland by truck.
- Yes, on trucks, confirms cheese seller Andrei.
Another seller is "Tatiana" from St. Petersburg. He promises that the fresh cheeses will be delivered "soon" and refused to provide details of the delivery. He has to offer 250 grams of Oltermann for four euros.
Customs: Transportation is by truck
According to Petri Kukkonen, the head of customs in Nuijamaa, the cheeses are most likely going to Russia hidden in trucks.
Although passenger traffic is close to zero, cross-border truck traffic has not been affected by the corona pandemic. According to Kukkonen, in addition to professional motorists, only dual citizens and domestic citizens returning to the country cross the border.
- Now the only way to smuggle stuff is to take it in a truck. Excluding, of course, those few exceptions for passenger traffic.
Currently, those going to Russia are allowed to take five kilograms of cheese with them legally.
Why do Russians buy Finnish cheese?
Russian cheese retailers tell Yle that the popularity of Finnish cheese is due to its taste and price.
- Finnish cheese is very tasty and cheap, but in Russia the cheese is not tasty. I don’t want to add it to food, says a man who sells cheese.
One of Avito's cheese sellers is a man from Petrozavodsk. He also says that Finnish cheese is in great demand in Russia because of its taste.
Russia does not have a large selection of domestic cheese. Russia does not produce mold cheese or cheddar cheese, for example. Yle is described as having Russian cheese that always tastes the same despite the brand. Finnish cheese, on the other hand, is considered to be of high quality and inexpensive.
In addition to these, Finnish products have a good reputation in Russia. Before the sanctions, it was possible to buy Finnish cheese from ordinary grocery stores in Russia. Finnish cheese was more expensive than Russian cheese, but it was still available.
Today, Finnish cheeses can only be bought online or in stores selling Finnish products.
Before the sanctions, half of Oltermanni's production went to Russia
Valio, which makes Oltermann, cannot supply cheeses to Russia due to sanctions. Russia has long been Valio's most important export country.
In 2014, a ban on imports of foreign food came into force in Russia. Prior to that, half of Oltermanni's production in Finland went to Russia. Now we are talking about a few percent.
- Oltermann had a huge market share and a lot of fans in Russia before the border closed in 2014, says Elli Siltala, Valio's Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing.
Today, the majority of Valio's products sold in Russia are locally manufactured in Russia. Valio has one plant near Moscow.
Oltermann is currently also manufactured in Russia. Valio's CEO Elli Siltala says that the cheese is made by Valio's partners and that Valio packs the cheese in Oltermann's own wrappers at its own factory.
However, Oltermann's production in Russia is low and does not meet high demand.
- The demand for Oltermanni cheese would be much higher at the moment, which we are able to offer locally.
Why doesn't Valio make more cheeses in Russia if sales are so hard? However, according to Siltala, the demand is not so high that Valio would like to establish a new cheese factory in Russia.
- We are currently investing the largest investments in dairies and manufacturing plants in Finland. We do not plan to build a cheese factory in Russia, but we make products through partners, says Siltala Valio's strategy.
Cheese too weak to sell to retailers
Prisma in Lappeenranta is told that they have been asked to buy cheeses even one pallet at a time.
What, then, is the reason why Prisms near the border are reluctant to sell cheeses to retailers?
- It is not justified to sell such a low-margin and employment-intensive product to cheese brokers when there are no other purchases. It does not support other trading, says branch director Risto Punkkinen from Lappeenranta's Prisma.
Punkkinen explains the employability of cheese sales by the fact that large sales require the constant addition of the product to the shelves. Serving Russians in stores also takes more time than Finns. Punkkinen says that the cash transaction in tax-free purchases is completely different from normal funding.
- This includes financing the products often in cash, checking passports, printing receipts and sealing purchases after the customer has packed them after payment. It takes significantly more work time compared to a regular debit card purchase.
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11525524
This happens only because of the stupid muscovites and pidorsburgers who think that wectern cheese is something elite. Meanwhile cheese made in regions is aa good,and cheaper. Made by happy cows who actually walk in nature, fields (wect doesn't have this, they make cows suffer and keep them in cages)
