Warning: Russian product! Uzhgorod shops began to label products from the neighboring country

In some cities of our country, goods manufactured in Russia have been marked since the beginning of the war in the East. Patriotic shopkeepers decided that buyers have the right to know the origin of the goods they buy in order to have a choice: to support domestic producers – or the Russian economy.

In Uzhgorod, this trend has not been picked up by all commercial establishments. Only a few of large supermarkets began putting Russian tricolor image or the name of the country of origin near the price of the goods.

Perhaps the first to do that was the supermarket "Dastor". According to the owner of the establishment, Robert Horvath, a few months ago he ordered special price tags, which, among other information, contain the information about the country of origin. "This is the request of the society. For many customers today, it is really important to know what country the products they consume are from. It is not too expensive for us, but convenient to customers" – Mr. Horvath said.

Today, about half of the goods in "Dastor" are from Russia. Those are seafood, sweet bars, vodka, mayonnaise, household chemicals, cosmetics, tea, pet food, etc.   Of course, it would be incorrect to say that consumers began to abandon the Russian production on a massive scale, especially in the absence of Ukrainian counterparts. 

Another supermarket, where they mark the goods from Russia is "Vopak" on Svoboda Avenue. They began to replace price tags about a month ago at the order of the central office in Lutsk. There, products made in Russia account for about 30% of total amount. They do not consider the new price tags to be particularly effective, because even before that, buyers, for whom it is a question of principle, would either look at the barcode or ask consultants about the country of origin. The administrator of the supermarket mentioned an old lady, who recently came to buy some cheese – she chose the "Russian" brand, but was long inquiring whether it was really Russian or just a brand name.

Meanwhile, in the local chain stores "Zina", goods from the neighboring country are not marked. The store owner Mykola Zholtani assures that they sell very few products from Russia. "We have less than 20% of such goods in our stores, so we don’t see a point in spending extra money for additional labeling. We sell Russian vodka, several brands of household chemicals and sweet products by the "Nestle". We deliberately expanded the range of vodka from Ukrainian manufacturers, but buyers continue to buy stronger Russian alcohol. We give customers oppotunity to choose what they like. And abandoning Russian products, hoping that it would weaken their economy, in my opinion, is ineffective," – Mr. Zholtani said.

Stores "Cosmo", "Vatsons" do not mark the goods too. The administrators of these stores could not explain the reasons for that. But given the fact that most cosmetic products are brought to supermarkets from Russia, it’s natural that they fear of the negative impact of labeling on sales.

In appliances stores, you will not find tricolor markings too. They explain: modern appliances are not made in Russia.

So, shops mark Russian goods at their own discretion. In Uzhgorod, apparently they are not going to introduce mandatory designation, as they did in Lviv by the decision of the municipality. But since this issue was raised at the meeting of the Executive Committee, this week, the Acting Mayor Victor Shchadey responded and issued the order recommending commercial establishments to mark the goods manufactured in the territory of the Russian Federation.

Source – newspaper "Uzhgorod"