Will Belarusians enjoy a birch sap enough this year?
This year, the first sweet drops were taken from the forests of April 11 in the south of the country. Within a week forest enterprises have managed to procure 9 thousand tons of juice from 27 tons planned for the season. Brest region is the leader. Here it was lowered 3.7 thousand tons of sweet product. In Minsk region there is 1,9 thousand tons, in Gomel region-1 thousand tons, in Grodno region-0,9 thousand tons.
5-10 degrees Celsius above zero is considered to be the optimum temperature for preparation of juice. "Birch campaign" ussually starts in 20 days of March and lasts just over a month. This year, it started later because of the cold weather. Particularly the passibility of forest roads has deteriorated in some districts. The sharp warming brings anxiety. While in the north of the country snow may lie between the trees, so in the south the thermometer can show 20-25 degrees Celsius during the day.
We can forget about stocking the juice when the thermometer rises to plus 10 degrees and above in a dark time.
Processing plants are the major buyer of birch juice. Some of them do not see the tragedy that they will not gather additionally the planned decalitres. But the others have already involved the high technology to get more juice.
"We will make drinks with different tastes, what can we do? Although our customers always wait for birch sap in the spring. We delivered for them fresh juice in stores last week. We have as pure juice, so with the addition of lemon juice and grapefruit. Moreover we produce a mojito cocktails based on birch sap. These coctails are very popular in summer. The interest of customers is reduced close to the autumn. However, the juice do not lie on the stock,»-as said in JSC "Savushkin Product". At the other «juice» company JV "Oasis Group" in spite of the weather, they are going to take planned 1.5 million tonnes of juice. "We have involved 15 of rented cars with capacities. We could have more, but the power plant do not allow to process more, "- marks Roman Shvetsov, head of warehouse logistics JV "Oasis Group ". In birch sap, which comes to the plant, they add 1-2% of the total volume the sugar syrup, citric acid, natural or concentrated lemon juice. The juice is kept 2 days after the spill, and analyzed in the laboratory and after that permission to sell is issued.
While there is fresh juice, Belarusians are ready to buy it right "out of birch." According to the Ministry of Forestry, the population has already acquired 130 tons of drink from purveyors.
