Speed up XML upload to SQL Server with EF. Improve performance by applying schema?

I'm trying to upload XML to SQL Server database, I use Entity Framework. I have an XML of apx. 30MB with 10k records. It's been taking minutes just to upload a small portion of this data. I read in this post - The Best Way to shred XML data into SQL Server database columns - that using schema can drastically increase performance. I have a schema file available in xsd format, how would I go about applying it? Or perhaps there is some other way to improve the performance? The simplified version of my code is below.

public ActionResult XmlLoaded() {
            XDocument root = XDocument.Load("..path..");
            XElement feed = root.Element("feed");
            IEnumerable<XElement> items = feed.Elements("item");

            foreach (XElement item in items)
            {
                XElement sku = item.Element("sku");
                XElement brand = item.Element("brand");

                Product product = new Product();

                product.ProductId = (int)sku;
                product.Brand = (string)brand;

                _productRepo.Add(product);
                _productRepo.SaveChanges();
            }