The working day at the Khiloksky shopping center starts early: at six o’clock in the morning, wholesalers from all over Siberia come to shop – from Tomsk, Kemerovo, Barnaul, Krasnoyarsk. F
Up to 300 thousand tons of fruits and vegetables are sold annually in the Khiloksky shopping center.
The history of the Khiloksky shopping center began in 1995.
During its existence, Khiloksky has become the largest wholesale food market in Russia beyond the Urals. If initially the enterprise supplied only one city with fruits and vegetables, now it provides supplies to all regions of Siberia. To date, the volume of trade is 300 thousand tons per year.
Honored Awards
Dozens of refrigerated trucks come here every day, carrying delicate sweet products. Now our southern neighbors have just begun the season of strawberries and cherries, and the aroma of juicy berries is literally dizzy. Peaches, apricots, plums of various varieties, nectarines and other southern fruits coexist next to them on fruit ruins. A real fruit paradise.
Every year, 300 thousand tons of vegetables and fruits are sold here. Approximately 60 thousand tons of them are the products of local agricultural producers, these are potatoes, as well as open ground vegetables – various types of cabbage, carrots, beets, onions, radishes, pumpkins and zucchini in season. The rest, and primarily a variety of fruits, are brought from near and far abroad countries – Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Turkey, Iran. Twenty-ton trucks spend a day on the territory of the center, a maximum of two – the products are perishable, they must be sold quickly, and rather on the road, for a new batch. Moreover, all conditions have been created here for a quick turnover, it is not for nothing that the shopping center was awarded the “Best Employer of Russia” award with the title of “Socially Significant Enterprise of the Russian Federation in 2017”. And this is just one of his many awards.
The working day at the Khiloksky shopping center starts early: at six o’clock in the morning, wholesalers from all over Siberia come to shop – from Tomsk, Kemerovo, Barnaul, Krasnoyarsk. By eight, wholesale buyers from the regions of the region appear. And, finally, at ten o’clock the Novosibirsk owners of fruit stalls, shops, restaurants and cafes arrive. For residents of the city, next to the wholesale market, a retail fair is open from eight in the morning until eight in the evening, where you can buy the entire assortment, but not in boxes and bags, but as much as you need. By the way, the prices here are lower than in stores.
Sweet Conveyor
Kamil from Azerbaijan sells mainly fruits – he offers customers cherries, apricots, strawberries. According to him, trading at Khiloksky is very convenient.
— Demand is good, there are a lot of buyers, the goods are dismantled quickly. And as for the prices, it’s not necessary once at a time. This is the market. There can be many goods in one day – this is one price. If it is not enough, then the price will be higher, the situation changes every day. And you know, there is no meat without a bone: what kind of product, such prices, everyone can choose what suits him, – says Kamil.
And the choice here is really huge. Take the same cherry. If earlier it was transported in boxes by planes, often unripe, and sold only at the beginning of summer at crazy prices, now it is on the shelves from early May to October. Now, in June, a juicy berry is brought from Uzbekistan – there it ripens the earliest. Then it is replaced by cherries from Kyrgyzstan, then – from Turkey, after that – from Serbia. The sweet conveyor works non-stop.
“Better than in Tashkent”
But cherries for Siberians are more of a delicacy, albeit quite affordable. But you can’t do without vegetables. There is also a wide range of them here. On the counter at Hanifa are bright peppers of different varieties – round and long, large and small, red and green, sweet and spicy, in a word, for every taste, as well as glossy eggplants, tender zucchini, young garlic, fragrant lemons. Hanifa is from Uzbekistan and has been trading in the market for twenty years. We can say that Siberia has become native for her, however, as well as for many other sellers. Nurmamat from Kyrgyzstan, for example, has been living in Novosibirsk for ten years, his children went to school here.
“We, the sellers, have nothing to complain about – the conditions are excellent, the demand is good, there are many buyers, some have been coming to us for years, we have already become like family to each other. Moreover, we have a better assortment than in Tashkent,” Hanifa laughs.
Fruits and vegetables are a seasonal commodity, in winter sales volumes are somewhat reduced, but there is a lively trade all year round. In the cold season, warehouse services are in great demand among sellers – the infrastructure of the Khiloksky shopping center has a full-fledged warehouse facility.
