Something is missing at Russian supermarket checkouts: Orbit chewing gum, the best-selling brand to date, is becoming scarce. The manufacturer, the US group Mars, has not withdrawn from the market. Rather, according to the Russian business newspaper Kommersant, the cause is that the western sanctions also affect gum mass. It is the basis for the product that Mars produces in St. Petersburg.
The raw material made from synthetic polymers, which is also offered by German manufacturers such as Wacker Chemie, is supplied under a customs code within the group "Chemical products (...) including those consisting of mixtures of natural products". According to the report, this item is on the sanctions list.
And apparently that's not the only chemical missing from Western brands in their Russian factories. Delivery stops for certain colorings and emulsifiers are also causing problems for global food manufacturers, who mostly produce locally.
That's why they now want to approach their Brussels lobby group, Food Drink Europe, so that it can argue with the EU for exemptions from the sanctions, reports the Moscow newspaper, citing an internal letter from the Russian industry association Askond. A spokeswoman for Mars Russia said the company would not comment. Food Drink Europe said it has not received a request or taken any steps to do so.
One thing is clear: the pressure on the EU and its allies in North America to adapt the hastily introduced sanctions to everyday reality is growing. After all, there are no signs of Russia giving way - and so the economy will probably have to live with the conditions for years to come. At the same time, the Kremlin is also using technical arguments to use its exports of gas, oil and grain, which are difficult to do without, to create a mood for mitigating the sanctions.
Russia at least achieves propaganda successes. After all, President Vladimir Putin always emphasizes – for example in his widely acclaimed speech at the Petersburg Economic Forum in June – that sanctions weigh more heavily on Europe and its allies than on Russia's economy.
The most prominent example of the creative handling of sanctions is the Siemens turbine for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, which got stuck in Canada after maintenance work. Because it was not allowed to be delivered to Russia under the Canadian sanctions regulations, it was formally sent to Germany first.
Here it is not subject to sanctions and may therefore be carried out. Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) argues that Russia should not be given an excuse to reduce the amount of gas.
This also shows how the discussion has turned. Immediately after the start of the war, BASF boss Martin Brudermüller resisted popular demands that Germany should terminate supply contracts with Russia.
In other areas, too, reality makes improvements necessary. Last week, the EU not only tightened sanctions on trade in gold and jewelry, but also weakened the details of the previous sanctions packages. However, there was a communicative faux pas: the European Council's original press release stated that the EU was making aircraft maintenance easier.
The Russian media then cheered about the supposed significant concessions made by the EU, and shares in the airline Aeroflot rose sharply. After all, Russian aviation is threatened with standstill if spare parts are no longer available.
In the meantime, the Brussels communicators have deleted the sentence on aviation in the online version of their communication. The reason given by those close to the EU Commission was that the EU resolutions were not at all about concessions to Russia.
Rather, the original package of sanctions prohibited European aircraft manufacturers such as Airbus from transmitting safety-related data to the UN aviation safety organization ICAO - for the formal reason that Russia is a member of the committee. This faulty construction in the sanctions package alone was eliminated with the addition to the rules. However, the tale about the soft EU had already reached the Russian audience.
The Kremlin also achieved success on the issue of wheat: Declining delivery volumes to third world countries also have something to do with the fact that the EU is making payments more difficult, Moscow has been saying for months. Therefore, giving in to the sanctions is necessary to secure exports.
So far, the Europeans had rejected this. Last week, however, the EU Council clarified the rules and added exceptions for financial transactions with Russian state organizations if they are necessary for global trade in agricultural products, fertilizers, oil or medicines. "This is consistent with combating the false narrative that EU sanctions are leading to food and energy insecurity around the world," a Commission spokeswoman told WELT.
In addition, financial transactions are permitted when it comes to importing gas, titanium, aluminum, copper, nickel, palladium or iron from Russia into the European Economic Area.
In the meantime, Western brands are losing their appeal in the Russian market - also because those manufacturers who do not completely withdraw from the country have often stopped advertising campaigns and reduced product ranges. Nevertheless, there are no supply bottlenecks: According to the market researcher NielsenIQ, the proportion of foreign brands in Russian supermarkets has fallen by four percentage points to 17 percent compared to the previous year.
Russian manufacturers were able to catch up, especially in beer – at the expense of Heineken and Anheuser-Busch-Inbev, which had invested heavily in the market. Russian manufacturers are also regaining market share in spirits, personal care products and snacks. The market researchers analyze that, unlike in previous years, Western brands are no longer indispensable for the image of supermarkets.
However, not all products appear to be interchangeable. The newly created Russian brands CoolCola, Street, Fancy, Fantola and Chernogolovka Kola, which are intended to replace the discontinued offers from Coca-Cola, only have a market share of five percent.
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