Moscow's sweeping sanctions on European food have sent Russian restaurateurs, retail chains and food producers scrambling for alternative supplies and bracing for Soviet-style shortages.

The tit for tat trade restrictions — a response to U.S. and EU sanctions imposed over Russia's actions in Ukraine — have hurt farmers in the West for whom Russia is by far the biggest buyer of EU produce.

But they will also hit consumers at home, isolating them from world trade to a degree unseen for more than two decades.