A third of the milk produced in Latvia, about half of the chicken, less than half of the local flour, and onions - just over 50% - is the share of local products in some of the largest retail chains.
Producers are sounding the alarm, but retailers argue that local producers cannot produce more, and the situation depends on seasonality.
In 'Rimi' stores, fresh products of Latvian origin make up 70% of the offering, but in some categories, the picture is different. For example, in the categories of cheese, butter, margarine, and cottage cheese, local products currently account for just over half, while in the milk category, it is only a third.
"Latvian kefir producers are very strong, we have about 95% coverage there, a high level is also observed in the production of cottage cheese and cream - from 75 to 95%, but in milk production, considering our highly fragmented structure compared to Estonia and Lithuania, producers do not cooperate, so we see that due to price they can only provide 31%, because our Baltic colleagues offering better prices usually win," said Inese Petersone, a representative of 'Rimi Latvia'.
According to her, the solution would be cooperation between enterprises: "We see that cooperation is necessary. I have heard this from representatives of dairy farmers that they understand this. The question is only how to do it."
The chairman of the board of the Central Union of Dairy Farmers, Janis Sholks, disagrees with the arguments of the retail chain. He says it is about attitude: "All this rhetoric about the need for cooperation or other measures is somewhat populist because, in essence, everything depends on the retailer's attitude towards the local producer."
