World Perspectives

Borscht Belt Economics

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...

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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.

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