Small shops struggle to keep Ukrainian items on their shelves

Katsura imports about 300 shipping containers of products a year, including Eastern European juices, teas, herring, soda and sunflower seeds. He is also the exclusive U.S. distributor of Russian Red October chocolates, made by one of the oldest candy manufacturers in Moscow.  He said his hundreds of retail clients have been rushing to order goods before his 20,000-square-foot warehouse is empty. He thinks he has enough inventory  to fill orders for another six weeks. After that, he isn’t sure what will happen.

“It’s hard to understand the plan because you cannot change what people like for years suddenly for something different,” said Katsura, 45, who was born in Ukraine. “Of course you can get something similar from Europe, but it’s going to be much more expensive.”

At PV Euro Market in Parma, Ohio, Milan Cvjeticanin has been selling European specialties to the local Eastern European and Balkan communities since 2004. He said almost anything you’d find at a grocery store in Ukraine, Poland, Serbia or Croatia, you can find at PV Euro — including canned fish and Ukrainian breads. He said about 20 percent of his inventory is imported from Russia and Ukraine, and getting those products won’t be the only challenge in the near future.

“The Russia-Ukraine conflict is going to amplify all those transportation cost increases even more because the energy prices are going up.” 

Cvjeticanin, who came to the U.S. from Yugoslavia in 1992, said prices for imports already soared 30 to 40 percent during the pandemic, as a result of shortages and supply chain snarls. And there’s a limit to how many more increases he can absorb, since they’ve already eaten into his thin profit margins. He said there’s also a limit to how much he can raise prices before people stop buying.

“The average citizens are the ones who are going to be paying for the highest cost,” he added. “It just breaks my heart.”