Another million: how Tomsk entrepreneurs make money from wild plants. Spring wild plants, time to collect edible herbs Collect wild plants

Thus, last year, Finland received 2.5 thousand seasonal workers from Russia. People go to Finland in the summer mainly for seasonal work as berry pickers. Market participants say that this figure is much higher: Finnish agricultural enterprises are ready to hire berry pickers even on tourist visas.

The Finnish Embassy in Moscow, the Consulate General in St. Petersburg and branches in Petrozavodsk and Murmansk issued 2,460 short-term work visas to Russians in 2018, said Taneli Dobrovolski, press adviser at the Finnish Embassy.

“The largest number of work visas for seasonal work were issued in Petrozavodsk and Moscow,” he clarified.

Some go there on tourist visas, saying they plan to live in a campsite and pick berries for themselves, but in fact they work at an agricultural enterprise for cash. The Finnish authorities have no way of controlling this.

Finnish farms pay pickers on average 1 euro per 1 kg of strawberries collected, 2 euros per 1 kg of blueberries and 1.5 euros per kilogram of lingonberries.

But it’s not only foreign farmers who offer the opportunity to make money by picking berries. Ours can also pay and they pay even more than in Finland, said the Russian enterprise Yagody Karelia.

“In 2018, we bought blueberries for 4 euros, lingonberries for 3 euros, converted into rubles,” said the head of the enterprise, Alexander Samokhvalov. - We are developing a program to attract assemblers from other regions to work in Karelia, we have a hostel, and we are building another one. We buy vehicles and rent them out, creating conditions for people to pick berries here and take home decent money.”

The turnover of Yagod Karelia in 2017 amounted to 719 million rubles. The cooperative annually attracts up to 10 thousand cloudberry, lingonberry and blueberry pickers, mainly in the regions of the North-West, organizes about 400 collection points for berries and mushrooms and 60 branches with refrigerators.

But these are isolated cases. Nowadays, picking berries and mushrooms in the forests of our country is possible only for personal needs in accordance with the Forest Code, which clearly states: the procurement of food forest resources, as well as the collection of medicinal plants, is a business activity and can only be carried out on the basis of land lease agreements. But such an agreement is concluded for 49 years, and the process of concluding it is long and costly. Residents of villages and forest settlements do not need all this paperwork: the collection of wild plants is limited to several months. And how can you find out in advance whether, for example, lingonberries will be produced this year or not? And you have to pay for the use of the territory and carry out the required fire safety measures. According to rough estimates, due to such a complex scheme of leased plots throughout the country today - no more than three percent.

“That is, if a pensioner collects a basket of mushrooms and decides to sell them, he will break the law. And this is a great injustice. Previously, this brought income to thousands of people; procurement offices operated. And now we buy berries and mushrooms abroad,” complains Nikolai Nikolaev, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Natural Resources, Property and Land Relations. By the way, a bill correcting this situation has already been submitted to the State Duma and has passed its first reading.

If it is adopted, citizens will have the opportunity to earn money by selling mushrooms, berries and other plants collected in the forest to procurement offices. The document may be adopted before the end of the spring session, Nikolaev said.

“We are now finalizing the legal part, and I hope that during the spring session, just in time for the wild plant harvesting season, we will have time to finally adopt it,” the deputy said.

The bill provides for the following mechanism. Consumer and agricultural cooperatives, enterprises and individual entrepreneurs will have the right to organize procurement offices and purchase wild plants from the population. People, in turn, will be able to sell the collected wild plants to procurement offices.

If the bill is passed, it will be possible to buy birch bark, brushwood, reeds, spruce branches, wild fruits, berries, nuts, mushrooms, seeds, birch sap, and medicinal plants from the population.

Picking berries and mushrooms, wild herbs and nuts in Russia is not just a tradition, a hobby or part of a healthy lifestyle. For many people in the country, wild plants are a way to “stay afloat” - to earn a living and food.

That is why Russians are so sensitive to any attempt to introduce regulation in this area.

“People in some regions of Russia live in difficult financial, economic and living conditions - they feed themselves by stockpiling supplies,” notes the head of the State Duma Committee on Labor and Social Policy. “I supervise the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, and almost every family there freezes cloudberries, mushrooms, fish and venison for future use. Recently I was in the Smolensk region, people are selling strawberries and mushrooms because they live on meager pensions. You cannot punish people for picking an extra mushroom or raspberry. We need to give people additional income,” the parliamentarian is confident.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, reserves of wild raw materials in Russia amount to about 8.5 million tons per year. However, they are currently used at only 6%. Officials have repeatedly said that there is no single center of control over this area in the country.

Thus, last week a resolution appeared on the Regulatory and Legal Acts Portal (regulation.gov) transferring control over wild berries, mushrooms, medicinal plants and nuts to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation. The department's press service stated that they do not intend to limit or prohibit the picking of mushrooms and berries, but this step was perceived in society as such. And the Russians have reason to expect a catch. Just look at the sensational law on fishing, after the adoption of which many residents of villages and villages who fed from rivers felt deceived.

The situation is similar with forest lands. Forestry is perceived in the country as a draw, that is, it can be taken. This is largely why the legislative permission for Russians to collect dead wood plunged society into cognitive dissonance: was it not possible before?!

Here are the berries for you

Let us recall that at the end of 2016, the governor of the Vladimir region received a proposal to take control of the collection of wild plants. Private owners, according to her, collect forest wealth absolutely free of charge, which is why the state loses a huge part of natural resources without receiving anything.

At that time, the head of the Ministry of Agriculture recalled that during the USSR, taxation of subsidiary plots was introduced and this brought additional funds to the budget. And then in one of his interviews, Tkachev said that Russia traditionally imports mushrooms, although the country has its own “like dirt,” and there is no industrial basis for their production.

Then some journalists, comparing facts and statements, concluded that the Ministry of Agriculture wants to take control of this area. The topic received wide public response, and the department had to justify itself,

stating that “the information that advocates the introduction of a license for the collection of wild mushrooms is fiction and does not correspond to reality.”

However, there may have been no talk about licensing, but just a month later the publication Bloknot reported that it was preparing a bill that should bring order to the issue of collecting “nobody’s” mushrooms, berries and plants.

The head of the State Duma Committee on Natural Resources, Property and Land Relations then said that for Russia this is a huge market, three-quarters of which is shadow, and due to the lack of appropriate legislation and regulation it does not bring any income to the budget.

There are professional berry and mushroom pickers, who are then exported.

This is indirectly confirmed by ROIF Expert statistics. According to their data, in 2018, supplies of Russian berries abroad increased by 43% by weight and by 9% by value (up to $0.5 million). At the same time, wild plants account for 32-35% of all berries collected in Russia.

The situation is slightly worse with mushrooms. According to TEBIZ GROUP, in 2018 the volume of imports exceeded domestic production by 1.2 times. The leader then was the Kursk region, which produces about 6.7 thousand tons of mushrooms.

True, the Union of Procurers and Processors of Wild Plants notes that it is unlikely that when organizing the purchase of wild plants from the population, the circulation of the money supply can be called shadow or illegal:

even when paying individuals, we are not talking about concealing taxes (the state absolutely deliberately exempted citizens from paying income taxes in order to stimulate economic activity in taiga and rural areas, many of which can be classified as economically depressed areas) and even more so on the legalization of criminal proceeds.

Count us in

In general, the professional community is not against the introduction of clear rules of the game. However, as Natalya Bobyleva, general director of the Union, notes, “two negative factors cannot be allowed: over-regulation of the industry, as well as the emergence of a certain monopoly player in the market.” “Currently, industry players operate on a competitive basis, and we would not want to change this,” she adds.

“The less the state interferes in this area, the healthier it will be,” believes Anton, chief economist of the Expert RA agency. “Mushrooms and berries are doing great; Finland and Poland are actively purchasing them. This is an excellent example of how a sector that the state doesn’t care about can live just fine without regulation,” Tabakh points out.

The Ministry of Agriculture does not hide the fact that it is committed to developing the export potential of the industry - the world market for berries, mushrooms, and medicinal herbs is huge, and Russia has abundant reserves of this wealth.

The Ministry of Agriculture estimates the export potential of mushrooms alone at $2 billion. However, all indicators here are very relative, which is why the department is in a hurry to start accounting.

“Taking into account the volumes that are actually produced in Russia will allow us to evaluate export opportunities,” says the director of the Institute of International Economics and Finance of the VAVT Ministry of Economic Development. “In this sense, the initiative is understandable, but the additional regulation that it will entail should not distort the production process. Regulation should be structured in such a way that the volume of collection and production of wild plants is not affected, but on the contrary, so that it contributes to increased sales.”

The State Duma has its own view on the problem: deputies propose to organize collection points for collected wild plants from the population and thus centrally control this area.

“The Ministry of Agriculture should support people who are forced to earn a living in this way, and not place a specialist at each bush who controls who has collected and how much,” explained the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Natural Resources in an interview with Gazeta.Ru.

True, as Bobyleva notes, “purchasing and procurement points have been functioning for a very long time in all villages and hamlets, and not even one at a time, but on the contrary, there are a large number of these purchasing points and they compete with each other in the proposed purchase price.”

Picking mushrooms and berries for personal use, meanwhile, is often regulated by local authorities. And not always in favor of ordinary people.

The authorities of the Primorsky Territory adopted the most stringent policy. In 2017, deputies of the local legislative assembly limited the period for collecting pine nuts to one and a half months (from October 1 to November 15), and in 2018 they established a fine of 1.5 to 3 thousand rubles for violations when collecting medicinal plants, berries and mushrooms . Moreover, collecting pine nuts could bring local residents an additional income of 60-170 thousand per month.

Photo control of cranberries

Similar restrictive practices have developed in other countries of the post-Soviet space.

Since 2015, in Kazakhstan, citizens without permits can collect mushrooms, berries, nuts and medicinal herbs only within the limits of regional norms. For example, residents of Nursultan (Almaty) will have to limit themselves to 3 kg of mushrooms or berries.

In Belarus, cranberries and lingonberries can only be collected within the time limits permitted by the regional executive committees. Violators are caught using photo and video cameras - from January to July 2018, 49 people were brought to administrative responsibility in this way.

In Ukraine, the collection of wild plants is regulated by regions. In 2012, the media reported that the Khmelnitsky Regional Council established a fee for collecting wild berries and mushrooms - 0.45 hryvnia per kg of strawberries or blueberries, 0.5 - per kg of hazelnuts and 0.55 - per kg of porcini mushrooms. It was not specified whether the restrictions are still in effect.

It would seem that after the adoption of laws allowing the collection of dead wood and bow hunting, allowing criminal prosecution for likes and reposts, introducing taxes on and, nothing will surprise Russians! However, the list of bills that have already been dubbed outrageous, ridiculous and violating human rights on social networks is growing every month. And if the ban on criticizing the authorities or disseminating fake news most of all threatens young citizens of the Russian Federation who “dwell” on social networks, then another bill could affect their grandparents!

We are, of course, talking about the developments of the Ministry of Agriculture, which formalize the process of collecting wild plants (i.e. wild berries, mushrooms and more). There are rumors that already in 2020, it will be possible to collect boletus and boletus, blackberry and hawthorn, as well as any other types of edible mushrooms, berries, nuts, medicinal plants and even seeds only with a special license! And since the collection process will be licensed, then the wild plant gatherers will probably be subject to a new tax... But is this so? And will Russians have to pay for every can of chanterelles rolled up?..

Law on control of the collection of berries and mushrooms

In the summer of 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture again put the collection of wild plants on the agenda. This is because the forest wealth hidden in the thickets is an almost inexhaustible resource with great export potential! Thus, the sale of mushrooms alone, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, can bring in an additional 2 billion rubles! But for this, the circulation of wild plants (from their collection and processing to sale to the consumer) must be taken under strict control.

So far, neither the collection of medicinal plants, nor the decanting of birch sap, nor any work on the procurement of wild food resources is monitored in any way, and there is simply no legal regulation in this area. If the government develops a clear legal procedure regulating the circulation of forest products, its export will begin to bring significant profits to the country! After all, now not only private traders are engaged in collecting berries and mushrooms, but also thousands of hired pickers who hand over the “catch” to entrepreneurs.

According to rough estimates, Russian forests can offer an exploitable reserve of resources in the amount of 7.4 million tons - however, of this immense amount, from 5% to 10% per year is developed and processed. It turns out that an economically attractive industry is “idle” and does not bring any benefit to the country! If we legalize the process of circulation of wild food resources, this will set the vector for the development of small businesses, attract the attention of entrepreneurs to Russian forests and bring profit to hired collectors.

The Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation has been appointed as the authorized federal body that will deal with the legal regulation of the collection of wild plants. There are rumors that working with one or another type of wild plant will cost private owners different amounts - for example, mushroom pickers will have to shell out 6,000 rubles from their pockets, and berry lovers – 4,500 rubles! Of course, this caused a wave of indignation on social networks - after all, grandparents who besiege forests during the season do not do it for a good life, but to feed themselves. Will the authorities really deprive them of this opportunity?

Who will have to pay for collecting wild plants?

Alarm clear! Although the news about control over the collection of wild plants is not fake (this process will indeed be taken seriously by the Ministry of Agriculture), ordinary Russians should not panic. The drafters of the new bill emphasized: this is not about introducing restrictions on the collection of food resources! Individuals collecting wild raw materials for their own needs will not be taxed, and no one will license their activities. So if you like to express a bucket or two of birch sap for your children during the season, pick strawberries or roll up a jar of butter, you won’t break the law.

It’s another matter if the raw materials are collected not for personal and family use, but for sale. It is the entrepreneurs who interact with berry and mushroom pickers who will become the object of close attention from the state. However, the Ministry of Agriculture insists that such attention will only benefit small businesses: the activities of collectors and procurers will be legitimized, they will be able to pay taxes (which is a rather dubious advantage), and in return receive completely “white” salaries.

All this, according to experts, will make it possible to pump up the market and turn Russian forests into a source of enormous profit - after all, pine nuts alone already bring in $400 million in turnover, not subject to any taxes. As a rule, pickers sell the product to resellers, and then the mushrooms and nuts are sent to foreign factories for processing and sale. At the same time, 90% of the profit ends up in the accounts of foreign companies; legalization will make wild plants profitable for domestic companies.

Evgenia Shalikhmanova (director of the marketing department of NJSC “Euroexpert”) emphasizes: when collecting forest resources in your own interests, for “sunsets” for the winter or seasonal consumption, you will not have to pay anything! But the line separating the collection of mushrooms and berries for one’s own needs or for sale is very thin, and it is quite difficult to establish it legally. Not to mention the fact that many Russians sell the collected raw materials not to generous foreign buyers, but at the nearest market in order to somehow survive. It is likely that the new law will make their life much more difficult...

Tomsk entrepreneurs Yuri Chirkov and Maxim Kolpakov discovered a promising business niche literally under their feet. The production of products from Siberian wild plants brought them 10 million rubles. revenue in the first quarter of 2018

Maxim Kolpakov and Yuri Chirkov (from left to right)

“I was constantly traveling between two cities: in Tomsk - my wife and two children, in St. Petersburg - business,” says Yuri Chirkov. “At some point I couldn’t stand it and started thinking about how I could make money in my hometown. All the Siberian oil wells were occupied, and there were also many people willing to process timber, so the idea of ​​working on berries and mushrooms came up.”

The production of products from wild plants is a promising market. On the one hand, the industry is in decline - much less berries and mushrooms are processed than in Soviet times. On the other hand, demand from wealthy consumers for eco-products is growing. Chirkov decided to build a large-scale business from scratch in the wild plant market. The new brand managed to get onto the shelves of Auchan and the Siberian chain Holiday. In the first quarter of 2018, sales of food products made from taiga berries, mushrooms, nuts and herbs brought “Diko Vkusno” 10 million rubles. revenue and about 1 million rubles. arrived.

Native soil

A graduate of the Tomsk Institute of Automated Control Systems and Radioelectronics (TIASUR), 47-year-old Yuri Chirkov worked for 13 years as a commercial director in a company that was engaged in the wholesale trade of perfumes and cosmetics in Tomsk. And in 2013, together with friends, he founded the Crocus Group LLC company in St. Petersburg, which produces household goods for the kitchen - garbage bags, napkins, etc. “I had friends in St. Petersburg, so we decided to start a business there together with them,” explains Chirkov. By 2016, thanks to orders from large federal retail chains (Magnit, Lenta, Pyaterochka), the company’s turnover reached 177.9 million rubles, net profit - 4.4 million rubles.

“I had time, money and, most importantly, a great desire to do something in Tomsk,” the entrepreneur recalls. In 2016, he sold his share in Crocus Group LLC (the entrepreneur did not disclose the proceeds), returned to his hometown and began searching for a free niche. A few months later, his close friend and fellow student in the Presidential Management Training Program Maxim Kolpakov, who had previously worked in the construction industry for more than ten years, told him about the idea of ​​​​selling products - jam, candies, berry sauces made from wild plants and other natural products. Chirkov really liked the idea, and together the friends set about developing a business model. “Of course, we were not sure about the prospects, but there was a feeling that there would be a demand for products made from wild plants,” says Chirkov.

Wild plants are mushrooms that grow on their own (that is, not cultivated), as well as fruits and seeds of wild plants. Initially, it was clear that it was useless for a new player to start in the economy segment of the canned sweets market. There were already large companies here - “Sava” and NIIPP from the Tomsk region, “Ratibor” from the Tver region, “Victoria” from the Krasnodar Territory, etc. Of course, they mainly produce products from garden berries, but some make jams from wild plants.

“In the cheap segment, a 200-gram jar of jam costs 40-60 rubles. on the shelf, while a kilogram of wild berries from suppliers costs about 200 rubles. “So calculate how many berries are in this jar,” says Chirkov. The friends decided to focus on the premium segment, where the price of a 200-gram jar starts at 200 rubles . In this segment, the market was much less saturated and there were mainly small local manufacturers who sold products in their regions. Chirkov immediately decided to sell wild plant products in bulk to the whole of Russia - to federal retail chains. To do this, he decided to first develop a recognizable brand and then form a product matrix around it: “We reasoned that people would be willing to pay for a quality product from Siberia.”

I don't want to take it

Today in Russia there are three main regions for the procurement and processing of wild plants: the North-Western region (Karelia, Novgorod, Pskov and Arkhangelsk regions), the Central region (Vologda, Vladimir, Ivanovo and Kirov regions) and Siberia (Tomsk region, Altai and Krasnoyarsk region).

According to the administration of the Tomsk region, for the 2017 season, at the beginning of September, local companies procured 540 tons of mushrooms, 1,470 tons of berries, 180 tons of pine nuts, 250 tons of food plants and 550 tons of pine foot, which is 10% higher than the corresponding figures for the previous year. “The market for wild plants in Russia is growing steadily - by 10-20% per year, but nevertheless, now only 10-50% is processed in the country compared to what was produced from wild plants under the Soviet Union. The connections between assemblers and manufacturers have been destroyed,” notes Anastasia Ptukha, managing partner of the consulting group of companies Step by Step. “At the same time, in supermarkets during the day, you won’t find, for example, high-quality jam made from wild berries. The market in this regard is not at all saturated.”

Jam as a gift

Chirkov and Kolpakov spent a total of about 500 thousand rubles on the development of the trademark, logo and brand book. personal funds. The product matrix, as conceived by the entrepreneurs, initially consisted of 30 items - various berry sauces, marmalades and jams. We chose non-standard flavors - for example, “Lingonberry with chili pepper,” “Cranberry with cloves,” or “Viburnum with pine cone.”

Entrepreneurs decided to purchase wild growing raw materials from the local population, who collect and prepare wild plants during the season. “This has long been an additional business for people in Siberia, and not only. There are more than 100 such brigades in Tomsk alone, and more than 300 in Altai,” explains Chirkov. — The hardest thing was finding their contacts. It helped us that we were local: some were recommended by friends, and some we found through advertisements for the sale of wild plants on social networks and on the website agro.ru.”

Mushrooms and berries are harvested only a few months a year - entrepreneurs must immediately buy large quantities of raw materials, which are frozen and used throughout the year. Entrepreneurs rented a production workshop in Tomsk for 300 thousand rubles. per month. The purchase of the necessary equipment cost entrepreneurs 2 million rubles, the same amount was spent on the production of the first batch of products and order 600 thousand rubles. — for certification of goods from this batch.,>

,>“In the premium segment of our market, most players are very small companies that use manual labor. We organized continuous production and, accordingly, received lower costs with stable quality,” explains Chirkov. But at the same time, unlike market leaders, production is small - you can quickly switch from one type of product to another, producing small batches to meet the requirements of a specific customer.

In mid-2016, the production of “Diko Vkusno” (Price-T LLC) began producing trial batches. The company launched a website, created groups on social networks and hired sales people who began calling retail chains. But all this did not work - retailers were wary of the new supplier, and sales did not occur at first.,>,>,>,>

Another promotion channel brought clients - about 1 million rubles. Chirkov and Kolpakov spent their time participating in specialized food exhibitions, where they met potential customers.,>The partners took part in several exhibitions in China, but those, according to Chirkov, did not bring results - the Celestial Empire was not interested in Siberian exoticism. But thanks to participation in the Russian Prodexpo, the first serious customers appeared. The largest was an advertising and souvenir company from Moscow, which at the end of 2016 ordered gift sets of wild plants under its own brand for the New Year. The revenue of Price-T LLC at the end of 2016 amounted to about 8 million rubles, 75% of which came from one order; profit - 1 million rubles.

Wild plants on the net

At the beginning of 2017, Chirkov and Kolpakov decided to expand the “Diko Vkusno” assortment with candies (cedar roasting and dragees). But if they purchased standard equipment for canning and production of berry sauces and jams, then for the production of sweets they had to develop individual equipment. “All candy products in the economy segment are made in a form that is convenient to make by machine. We wanted our candies to look as if they were made by hand. There are no devices for such parameters either in Russia or in other countries. They are made only to order."

Entrepreneurs spent about 2 million rubles on the purchase of equipment necessary for the production of sweets. But the non-standard shape allows the candies to be sold at a high price - a 120-gram pack costs 400 rubles on the shelf. To emphasize the Siberian origin of the products and justify high prices, “Diko Vkusno” makes branded counters and distributes them free of charge to customers.

Yuri Chirkov (Photo: Alena Kardash for RBC)

In the summer of the same year, entrepreneurs managed to conclude a contract for the production of products from wild plants for the Siberian chain of grocery stores "Holiday" under its trademark. “Diko Vkusno” offered its products to this chain back in 2016. Chirkov says: “Logging into the network has its own specifics. Assortment launch sales committees need a lot of time to evaluate products. On average, it takes up to six months to present a product and convey its specifics. It may take another three months to conclude the contract.” In June, Chirkov and Kolpakov made the first delivery of berry sauces to the Holiday chain in the amount of 500 thousand rubles.

In addition to Holiday, in 2017 the Tomsk retail chain Lama, as well as Moscow companies - eco-stores Biostory, Zdravtorg and other customers were added to the list of clients. “We buy mushrooms, berries, jam, and candies from Diko Vkusno. Sales of these products bring us good money. The supplier was chosen, apparently, because they understood that this product could be marked up by 60%,” said the head of the purchasing department of Biostory, asking not to mention her last name in the article.

However, entrepreneurs realized that they could not build a large-scale sales channel in the capital on their own. At the end of 2017, Diko Vkusno began working with several distributors in Moscow. “Each of them is responsible for a specific sales channel - offline eco-friendly stores, online stores, souvenir and gift shops,” says Chirkov. In February 2018, one of the intermediaries managed to conclude an agreement on the supply of wild plant products to Auchan. Chirkov does not disclose the amount of the contract, but admits that Auchan has now become one of the largest network clients.

It was the focus on unusual tastes that helped. “Our main suppliers of fruit and berry sauces are traditionally Asia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, but the “Diko Vkusno” offer was unique in its composition. We selected the sauces “Lingonberry with pepper” and “Cranberry with cloves”. Fruit and berry sauces for meat are just gaining popularity in Russia, and we would like to offer new tastes to our customers,” Maria Kurnosova, director of corporate communications at Auchan Retail Russia, told RBC. However, the product will appear on the shelves only during the annual “Barbecue” promotion, which this year will take place from April 20 to May 3. “The decision on the presence of the brand in the permanent assortment will be made based on sales results,” Kurnosova explained.

The revenue of Price-T LLC for the entire 2017 amounted to 20 million rubles, profit - 1 million rubles, according to Chirkov. 70% of all funds earned came from orders from Moscow. And in the first quarter of 2018 alone, revenue has already exceeded 10 million rubles. Chirkov connects this with the successful presentation of the brand at the international food exhibition Prodexpo-2018, held in early February in Moscow. “They sold out all our products there, even bought the branded counters that we usually give away for free,” the entrepreneur rejoices.

In the fall of 2018, Chirkov and Kolpakov are going to open their own retail stores and a “Diko Vkusno” warehouse in Moscow. According to the entrepreneur’s calculations, opening one such outlet will cost 5 million rubles; the store can make a profit in three months. “Natural products are now in demand in Moscow, and the opening of stores will help increase awareness of our brand,” hopes Chirkov. True, now he has to live in two cities again, like when he worked at Crocus Group.

View from the outside

“The market for wild plants is still very undeveloped”

Boris Akimov, founder of the LavkaLavka farmer cooperative

“Opening a business in the production of products from wild plants is strategically very promising. The market for wild plants, especially berries, is now one of the most dynamically developing in the world. We are also developing a project for the collection and processing of wild plants in the Murmansk region. We have not yet started production, but we are already seeing great interest: we have about ten preliminary agreements for the purchase of blueberries, cloudberries and other berries.

The market for wild plants is still very undeveloped. Russia once occupied a fairly significant place in the list of exporters, but the infrastructure that existed during Soviet times has fallen into disrepair. Another difficulty in this market is that it is gray. The first link is the collectors. They want to receive money immediately, in cash. You haven’t processed the berries yet, you’ll sell them in six months, and now you need to pay in cash. Imagine, the berry season is one month old, and you need to purchase 10 thousand tons of goods in cash from individuals. This is one of the key difficulties."

October 8, 2018

The endless forests of Russia are fraught with real riches - mushrooms, berries, medicinal herbs, nuts and much more. Collecting them is not an easy task, but it is even more difficult to organize the procurement, processing and marketing of wild-growing products. Employees of the Union of Procurers and Processors of Wild Plants know better than anyone else all the disadvantages of working with forest resources. Unfortunately, at the moment there are more than enough of them.

Forest wealth

Wild plants are dispersed throughout Russia, but especially a lot of forest wealth grows in the North-Western and Central regions, as well as in Siberia and the Far East. According to the Union of Wild Plant Procurers and Processors, at the end of 2017 alone, 347 forest lease agreements were concluded in Russia, of which 109 were in the Siberian Federal District. The volumes of use of wild fruits here amounted to 1,088 tons, berries - 541,690 tons, nuts - 5,828,167 tons, and mushrooms - 199,662 tons.

It is extremely difficult to estimate the real volumes of wild plant reserves. There are no official data on the results of statistical work, but even a subjective assessment allows us to talk about the great potential of food and non-timber resources for the development of the economic potential of a number of regions of Russia, as well as the development of exports to other countries.

Perhaps it is even more difficult to estimate the volumes of collection and procurement. According to Art. 11 of the Forest Code of the Russian Federation, in addition to registered organizations, every person in absolutely any point of our country has the right to freely collect and harvest an unlimited number of wild plants. According to the most approximate estimates, about 15% of products now remain on the local market, approximately 1/4 is distributed among the regions of the Siberian Federal District. 40% goes to the all-Russian market, and the remaining 20% ​​is exported to countries such as China, Italy, Germany, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Scandinavian countries.

In Siberia, more than 30 organizations are engaged in processing wild plants. A number of companies position themselves not only as producers, but also as processors of raw materials.

It’s a paradox, but distance from foreign countries becomes the main engine of progress: in order to send products for export, organizations need to minimize costs at all stages of the formation of the finished product and its transportation. To achieve this, in Siberia today they are actively developing deeper stages of processing, as well as building extensive procurement networks equipped with refrigerators, special equipment, transport and other equipment.

Try to prepare

Despite the fact that Russia has a huge potential for food and non-timber forest resources, the level of development of the wild plant processing industry remains very low due to a number of economic, legal, organizational and technical problems.

To date, there is still no complete environmental and resource assessment of wild fruit reserves, and there is universal legal regulation for the procurement of all types of wild plants. It shouldn’t be this way, because the collection and preparation of each type of wild plant has its own distinctive characteristics. For example, one cannot be guided by the same principles when harvesting pine nuts, berries, tree sap and medicinal raw materials.

In general, the stable operation of the industry is hampered by the pronounced cyclical nature of the harvest of wild fruits. The climate characteristics of our country do not allow us to supply a stable volume of products all year round. First you need to wait for the start of the season, then wild plants need to be found and collected, and this is very hard human labor that requires a lot of time and effort. The yield of each year also varies depending on natural and other biological factors.

In addition, in Russia the share of the rural population has greatly decreased, as a result there are fewer people willing to collect on a long-term basis, and the area of ​​territories where a significant portion of wild plants were previously collected has also decreased.

After harvesting, wild plants from the forest need to be brought to processing centers, which are very far away. The Union of Wild Plant Processors notes that industrial processing of raw materials is poorly developed due to the lack of a stable supply of legal raw materials and a limited material and technical base. In addition, the industry lacks qualified specialists who would process wild plants.

Despite these difficulties, the main problem in the development of the wild plant processing industry remains imperfect legislation.

“During the Soviet Union, everything was clearly regulated. After the collapse of the USSR, they began to build a new state system. Legislation in the logging sector developed because material interests were concentrated there, and the processing of wild plants fell out of sight despite its potential. We are somewhere between the Ministry of Natural Resources and the agriculture sector. Such uncertainty is the worst of all, so we need our own industry law,” said Yuri Rudakov, president of the Union of Wild Plant Processors NP.

During the Soviet Union, berries were accepted by labor supply departments (OPS) and procurement offices - they set a fixed price for the product and accepted it only in a completely purified form

Conflict of interest

The legislation in the field of regulation of wild plants does have many flaws. Let's start with the Forestry Code of the Russian Federation - it gives every citizen the right to collect and harvest berries, mushrooms, nuts, and medicinal plants anywhere, but at the same time does not control in any way the volumes of collected resources in commercial volumes, and organizations can only conduct their activities within leased areas forests. According to the Union, in general, leased forest areas for the purpose of harvesting wild plants account for only 3% of the total territory of Russia. It turns out that entrepreneurs are in no way protected from the uncontrolled collection of wild plants by people on their plots. With such a system, conflicts of interest inevitably arise between the two parties. The Union of Procurers and Processors of Wild Plants also notes hidden contradictions in forestry, civil and tax legislation. Thus, the forestry legislation strictly defines the classification of harvesting wild plants depending on who is involved in it - entrepreneurs for the purpose of making a profit or ordinary people picking mushrooms and berries for themselves. There are separate provisions in the civil and tax codes according to which any person can receive income from the sale of wild-growing resources harvested for their own needs.

According to Yuri Rudakov, information has recently appeared that it is planned to introduce a tax on income from collecting wild plants for one’s own needs. He expressed his disagreement with the possible innovation. It is difficult to disagree with this opinion, because it is almost impossible to keep track of the free collection of wild plants, and, most likely, this will give rise to disorderly taxation of everyone who falls under the distribution. And there will clearly be popular outrage in rural areas, where collecting berries, mushrooms, nuts, etc. is necessary to meet the vital needs of the local population.

Due to the fact that anyone and everyone can collect future products, few people legitimize the activity of harvesting wild plants; the seasonal principle of work also makes its contribution. There are practically no legal instruments for short-term use; Russia currently has a monopoly on long-term rentals (more than 10 years). This makes potential entrepreneurs even more reluctant to work in the wild plant processing industry. And those processors who nevertheless took up this business have a hard time even at the initial stages of creating a business, including now it is very difficult for them to find sources of financing.

“Federal Law 115 “On Combating the Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime” limits the scope of settlements between enterprises and legal entities that sell harvested wild plants. As soon as they start actively paying large sums to collectors and procurers, banks mark them as committing illegal acts and block the accounts of both parties. This is a very serious problem - the lack of the opportunity to purchase wild-growing products is killing the entire wild-growing industry, and without money it simply cannot develop,” says Yuri Rudakov.

Wild plants - for export

Currently, several projects are being launched in our country that will solve many problems in the wild plant industry. Thus, in September the State Duma should announce a bill that will improve legal relations in the field of collection and procurement of food and non-timber forest resources. Issues of a modern approach to organizing the work of procurement points are discussed, which will accept collected mushrooms, berries, nuts from the population for money, keep records of incoming volumes of raw materials, etc.

Improving the system of procurement points in the format of modern requirements for product quality requirements, storage conditions, transparency of financial transactions, and a number of others, will attract people to the collection and procurement of wild plants. Soon, the St. Petersburg International Commodity Exchange plans to launch an electronic trading platform for the sale of berries, nuts, mushrooms and medicinal raw materials. It should become a universal tool for searching for information about offers, as well as for concluding transactions for the purchase and sale of wild plants online.

“We are considering such initiatives with interest and support the need for technical software for the entire process of circulation of wild plants from the procurement stage to its receipt by the final consumer,” commented Natalya Bobyleva, General Director of the Union of Wild Plant Procurers and Processors.

The Government of the Russian Federation has developed a National Project for the Development of Non-Resource Exports, within the framework of which the issue of production and export of wild-growing products is also considered, because they really have great export potential: our natural resources have always been valued as an environmentally friendly product, so they will always be in demand on the world market.

“Right now our industry is presented in disparate fragments. We are working on the formation of the industry, and here it is important to properly organize all stages of work: first, qualitatively prepare wild plants, preserve them, then deliver them to production, process them, obtain high-quality products and promote them to the foreign market. Considering that wild plants are currently included in the program of the National Project for the Development of Non-Resource Exports, the prospects for the development of this industry are quite serious. Currently, exports of wild plant products amount to about $300 million. By 2025, we plan to almost triple the export of wild fruits. This will allow us to change legislation for the better, as well as develop new high-tech solutions for processing wild plants,” stated Yuri Rudakov.

The shortcomings of the legislation regulating the collection, procurement and processing of wild plants have given rise to a whole chain of negative consequences both for the development of entrepreneurship and, in general, for trade in wild plant products. But even despite the existing problems, it is already possible to clearly trace the trend of constant growth in the volume of consumption of Russian products, and with properly organized activities in the industry, Russia has every chance to take a leading position in the world market.

MUSHROOK PICKERS “OUTSIDE THE LAW”

An interesting legislative precedent exists in the Novosibirsk region. There, lovers of forest mushrooms and berries are deprived of the opportunity to collect the gifts of nature whenever they please. According to the regional law, the terms for harvesting wild plants are established by the order of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the region.

This year, Novosibirsk residents are allowed to visit the forest to pick berries and medicinal plants - from August 20 to September 10.

As noted on the ministry’s website, the deadlines for harvesting wild berries, pine nuts and medicinal herbs are set so that when collecting these food forest resources, they do not cause damage to nature. The dates are determined annually, taking into account weather conditions, the time of fruit ripening and the territorial location of the areas.

For example, lingonberries ripen for the first time in late summer - early autumn. The second fruiting occurs from October to November. An unripe berry sits quite tightly on the stem, and they try to pull it out using various mechanical equipment: scoops, combs, spatulas. By damaging plant stems, berry pickers reduce the quality of the harvest in subsequent years.

In the Novosibirsk region, Vengerovsky, Kyshtovsky, Severny and Ubinsky districts are considered “berry-rich” - here you can pick cranberries, and Kuibyshevsky, Suzunsky and Ust-Tarksky are generous with lingonberries. For pine nuts, you should go to the Bolotninsky, Iskitimsky, Kolyvansky, Kyshtovsky and Northern regions.

There is also a favorable period for collecting pine nuts when, with the help of a chop, the cones easily fall from the branches, and if they are not yet ripe, more effort has to be made. Cedars damaged by strong blows can easily die from a fungus that appears in places due to impacts, which subsequently causes rotting of the tree.

However, no matter what plausible pretexts the authorities justify the “berry” law, Novosibirsk residents do not take it seriously, although “unauthorized mushroom pickers-berry pickers”, by the way, face very real fines: up to 20,000 rubles.

Many ordinary Novosibirsk residents believe that such measures are completely justified when it comes to the mass collection of mushrooms and berries on an industrial scale. But in relation to the grandmother with the basket, the regional initiative looks like another legislative excess on the ground. The state has long been trying to restore order in the sphere of business based on the collection of wild plants, but so far it has not been very successful.

And it’s hard to imagine how violators are identified: you can’t post guards at every berry bush. However, on the website of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Novosibirsk Region it is noted that since August 1, 2018, forest inspectors have been daily patrolling areas where cedar plantations, wild fruits and berries grow. It is interesting how this patrol is carried out and “catching” those who, bypassing regional legislation, encroached on the unripe gifts of nature.

Text: Valentina Leskina