ITC partners in Ukraine showed their companies

After the 2nd Steering Committee Meeting of the International Trade Center (ITC) project in Ukraine “Linking Ukrainian SMEs in the Fruits and Vegetables Sector to Global and Domestic Markets and Value Chains”, producers and processors of fruit and vegetable products conducted an excursion on the territory of their enterprises, talked about activities, development plans and cooperation with the ITC.

The enterprise visits was attended by the Regional Trade Promotion Adviser of ITC Armen Zargaryan, the First Secretary/Reform Support Officer of Embassy of Sweden in Kiev Daniel Gronvius, the Head of the Business Opportunities of the Export Promotion Office Mariya Shevchuk, the National project manager Olena Kolomoytseva, the Assistant to the national manager Anna Syrchyna, consultants Oleksii Yerokhin, Vladyslav Faleev and Ivan Antypenko.

Firstly delegation visited the Enogray Company, which is located in the Bilozersky district of the Kherson region. The land of the company is located near the Dnipro estuary, whose water allows to soften the temperature during spring frosts and to avoid damage to the gardens.

Maxym Lytvynenko, head of the company, said they grow cherries, plum, apples, peaches, cherries and other fruits in an area of 700 hectares. In different periods of the year, the company operates from several tens to several hundred workers who come to harvest from different regions of Ukraine.

According to Maxym Lytvynenko, Enogray is the largest producer of peaches in Ukraine. During the year, about 2.5 thousand tons of sweet fruit are grown here.

As for markets, Maxym Lytvynenko says: “We are constantly looking for new partners and want to enter new markets. But now there is no stable export. There are some supplies to Poland, as well as preliminary agreements on supplies to the Netherlands and China.”

According to Maxym, a few weeks ago the Enogray was visited by a delegation from China. The meeting was devoted to the arrangements for supplying cherries to China. Chinese experts got acquainted with the conditions of cultivation of sweet cherries, taste characteristics, conditions of storage and packaging of the product. As Maxym says, cherries for the Chinese market remains an exotic and expensive fruit, but the demand for it is increasing, and the Chinese market can now offer profitable offers to the Ukrainian producer.

Another enterprise visited by ITC experts and was Rozdolne, which is located in the Kakhovka district of the Kherson region.

Rozdolne is the largest enterprise in southern Ukraine, which deals with shock-freezing of fruits and vegetables. Modern technology allows storing maximum nutrients after freezing.

This is achieved due to using Swedish equipment from the company Frigoscandia. Over the season Rozdolne freezes several thousand tons of products.

The head of the company Yuriy Bilichenko said that the main products here are strawberry, cherry, apricot, blackberry, eggplant, pepper, carrots, onions, tomatoes, broccoli and others.

Yuriy Bilichenko told about some features of the production process, and also showed ready-made frozen products.

“The main buyers of our products are processing enterprises that produce confectionery products, as well as catering. Exports are about 10-15%, but we are actively working to expand markets. I am grateful to the ITC project in Ukraine for its support and for the opportunity to take part in international trade shows. We are trying to use these visits to establish new business contacts and enter new markets,” said Yuriy Bilichenko.

Today Rozdolne team is developing and plan to increase production volumes. For this purpose a new shop for the freezing and storage of products is being built.