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Marketing Minute
04/15/2010 - Russia, Russian Service and Nike trivia tidbit
When Russia was under Communist rule, it regularly imported between 10 and 14 million tonnes of wheat per year. How things have changed. Russia is now a major wheat exporter. In the past 10 years, world wheat trade has increased 25% and Russia has accounted for 70% of that growth. The USDA expects that at the end of this marketing year the Russian wheat carryout stocks will be 12.7 million tonnes which is 38% lower than they were last year. Demand for wheat as an animal feed is expected to be 17% higher this year than last year at 19 million tonnes. This has lead to the USDA lowering their Russian wheat export forecast by half a million tonnes. A prominent Ukrainian consulting firm predicts that Russian, Ukrainian and Kazahstan wheat production will be down 6 – 14 million tonnes this year due to farmers disappointment over the current low prices as well as a shortage of loans and inputs. Russian farmers have taken out only half of the loans as they did last year. This has lead to lower input purchases which in turn could show up as lower yields at harvest time. Since Russia is a low price seller having fewer tonnes of low priced wheat on the world market should positive for wheat prices.
Trivia facts:
Michael Jordon is paid more for his celebrity endorsements for Nike than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
Russia has influenced the way food is served. Russian service was introduced in Russia about 1810 by an ambassador of the Russian czar. It was in the 1850's that Russian Service was introduced to France and soon spread to other countries. Russian service is what we use today. Each course is served to each guest individually.
'French service' was generally used up until the 1850's. (This was not what French service is today*) Under this method, the usually large menu (as many as 32 courses) was brought to the table in 2 or 3 parts, and all of the dishes of each part would be placed on the table at once. Guests would help themselves to each dish, most often in a confused and combative manner, those with the longest arms getting their favorites first. Frequently by the time you got to much of the food, it was no longer hot. Then all of the dishes from that part of the service would be cleared from the table and next part or 'service' would be placed on the table in the same manner.
*(Today, so called French service refers to restaurant service where a waiter does the serving of the food onto each guests plate, frequently with tableside preparation, rather than the food being plated in the kitchen).
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PREPARED BY THE NORTH EAST TERMINAL MARKETING TEAM
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