Ukrainian strawberries are cheaper this week. Carrots are pricier. Last year’s potatoes are pricier, too. New-season cabbage is cheaper. In Ukraine’s fifth wartime spring, the produce basket is moving in different directions in the same supermarkets.
Two forces are driving it down: a surge in domestic harvest from southern Ukraine, and a wave of imports.
The biggest move is in the berry aisle. As of 2 June, Ukrainian producers were selling garden strawberries for 120–200 UAH per kilogram ($2.70–4.51), an average of a fifth cheaper than the previous week, EastFruit analysts reported.
It is the second straight week of declines. Two forces are driving it down: a surge in domestic harvest from southern Ukraine, and a wave of imports from Greece, Türkiye, and Spain.
Ukrainian agriculture provides half of the country’s exports, with roughly half of those going to the European Union.
Behind the week’s numbers is a sector that has refused to contract through five wartime sowing seasons. Ukrainian agriculture provides half of the country’s exports, with roughly half of those going to the European Union, deputy minister Taras Vysotskyi told Euromaidan Press in May.
Ukraine’s deputy agriculture minister on the 2026 sowing, the labor crisis, and a sector holding steady under fire
Farmers have just sown more than 5 million hectares of spring grain under daily Russian drone strikes. The week-by-week churn in any one basket is what that steadiness looks like up close.
Why strawberries got cheaper
Foreign supply set the ceiling. Strawberries from Greece, Türkiye, and Spain typically arrive in Ukraine at under 200 UAH ($4.51) per kilogram, EastFruit analysts noted. Demand, they added, is restrained—households are not buying enough to soak up the surge.
Open-ground strawberries—those grown without greenhouses—are about to enter the market in volume.
More pressure is on the way. Open-ground strawberries—those grown without greenhouses—are about to enter the market in volume. Most growers expect another drop next week.
Even at this lower level, Ukrainian strawberries are still around 11% pricier than they were in early June 2025.
Not every basket got cheaper
A few aisles over, the math runs the other way. Carrots climbed 34% week-on-week as of 21 May, with farmers selling 2025-harvest stock at 13–20 UAH per kilogram ($0.29–0.45). Quality stocks are running out, and wholesalers are competing for what remains.
Last year’s potatoes climbed 15% in late May for the same reason: thinning supply against steady demand. Producers were selling them at 6–12 UAH per kilogram ($0.14–0.27).
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New cabbage is still 14% more expensive than it was last June.
New-season cabbage moved the opposite way—down 18% as the early harvest came in. Producers offered it at 34–40 UAH per kilogram ($0.77–0.90). But cabbage from the 2025 harvest is rising in price as quality stocks thin.
Prices climbed to 10–17 UAH ($0.23–0.38) from 8–15 UAH the previous week. New cabbage is still 14% more expensive than it was last June, and experts blame it on a cold spring.
The pattern is a wartime produce economy moving on more than one clock: last year’s harvest against this year’s, indoor growers against open-ground, Ukrainian production against imports.
What this looks like in wartime
Vysotskyi described the underlying mechanism. Most Ukrainians still grow some of their own food on household plots—fruits, berries, vegetables, chickens, eggs, pigs—and these growers have little storage. “These are non-professional producers without storage, so when harvest comes, supply surges and prices fall,” he said. “In winter, supply contracts and prices rise.”
The harvest window is short, the storage is almost nonexistent, and once Greek and Turkish supply enters the market, the floor falls out.
This is most of why a Ukrainian shopper’s basket lurches the way it does. Berries are a textbook case: the harvest window is short, the storage almost nonexistent, and once Greek and Turkish supply enters the market, the floor falls out. Carrots and potatoes from last year’s harvest are running on the opposite half of the cycle—the winter end, where stocks thin and prices climb.
Underneath that volatility is a workforce shortage. The deputy minister called it the sector’s single largest challenge.
“There is no physical deficit. All food categories are available on supermarket shelves.”
For shoppers, the headline number is that food is on the shelves. “There is no physical deficit. All food categories are available on supermarket shelves,” Vysotskyi said. What changes is the price of any given item, week by week.
