Borscht is considered comfort food in Russia and the cost to make it is reportedly rising. Bloomberg reports that since the start of the war, the cost of cabbage is up 16 percent and onion prices have risen by 18 percent. Based on FAO data, Russia produces 39.6 pounds per capita of cabbage but is the world’s largest consumer, eating 44 pounds per person. Ukraine is by far the world’s largest producer of cabbage, growing 88 pounds per capita each year and likely the main supplier to Russia. Borscht is getting more expensive in Russia because it is bombing a key supplier. There is even a fight over the national origin of the stew. Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted: “A timeless classic, #Borsch is one...
On Friday, at 6:57 AM, President Donald Trump announced, via a social media post, a 90-day window during which up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef could be imported outside of tariff-rate quotas—a move aimed at bringing down costs for American consumers. This is the secon...
In agriculture and food processing, we think a lot about infrastructure: transportation and storage, processing and packaging, distribution and delivery. It is a physical system of roads, railroads, and rivers; concrete and steel storage; processing plants, warehouses, and machinery; and, event...
Key Takeaways: The Panama Canal’s draft restrictions and decreasing rainfall outlook are driving big moves in dry bulk markets this week. Panamax markets are sharply lower as the economics of moving freight across the Canal are deteriorating rapidly, leading to support in Supramax vessels...
Russian Grain Markets: 10–14 August 2026 The Russian grain market continued to weaken sharply during the second week of August as the Black Sea logistics situation deteriorated. Russia and Ukraine continued exchanging drone and ballistic attacks on seaports, infrastructure and commercial...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.