We encourage you to buy local vegetables for the Midsummer holiday.

The summer solstice is a time when the offer of locally grown vegetables and berries is gaining momentum. The Midsummer festival is one of the most traditional Latvian holidays, so we encourage you to use vegetables, fruits and berries grown in Latvia on the festive table! We can replace Spanish melons, Portuguese cherries and Dutch tomatoes with those grown in Latvia. Vegetable growing specialists explain how to avoid getting confused on store shelves and choose local produce and what local products are currently available.

Edīte Strazdiņa, member of the board of the association “Zemnieku saeima” and head of the cooperative “Mūsmāju dārzeņi”: "To buy vegetables grown in Latvia, you should definitely read the price tag in supermarkets, where the country of origin of the product is indicated. Also, in supermarket promotion booklets, the first domestic vegetables are especially highlighted. You should be more careful when shopping at the market, because that is where imported vegetables are most often offered as local. Currently, local cucumbers, tomatoes, peas, zucchini, cabbage, kohlrabi are available in supermarkets, while new potatoes are not available in most cases!"

Sandra Marcinkeviča, member of the association "Farmers' Council" and representative of the cooperative "Baltiņi", said: "The safest and most reliable way to buy local vegetables is directly from the grower. If that's not an option, then I recommend supermarket chains and online stores or Direct Buying Groups as the next best option, as they all have a clear path of origin." When it comes to the market, I can safely say that the bigger the market, the less reliable the origin of the vegetables. For example, the Night Market was originally created specifically for local farmers, but now there are very few local growers left.

Currently, buyers are offered all kinds of local greens – scallions, lettuce, dill, spinach, green peas, etc. Of course, local tomatoes and cucumbers have been available since spring, as well as home-grown zucchini, cabbage and potatoes, as well as the first red beets and carrots. On the other hand, we should be much more careful if eggplants, peppers, celery, leeks, butter beans and green beans are already being claimed to be grown in Latvia. These products will be harvested from Latvian fields and greenhouses in a couple of weeks. May your shopping list be patriotic both during the holidays and in everyday life!”

PRes_ZSA invites you to buy local vegetables and berries