UKRAINE
Ukraine’s seafood business: Impacts of Russia’s war against Ukraine
Operating at Ukraine’s economic frontline Sergey Kardash is a co-owner and CEO of Klion Group Company. Having graduated from Donetsk State University as a marketing specialist, he never planned to relate his future life to fish. But…. as a child, he was proud of his aquarium and even managed to breed a Siamese fighting fish. Nothing happens by chance. This is the fourth in a series of articles in the Eurofish Magazine dedicated to seafood businesses in Ukraine and how they work and survive during the war.
Number one in Ukraine Very soon, the company started to import directly and later purchased a processing plant built during the Soviet era. The plant was completely modernized and in 2009 production started. Today, its seven processing units produce: frozen products (H&G fish, fillets, steaks, and various kinds of seafood); semi-processed products (minced fish, mixes of fish and vegetables); preserves from fish and seafood; fish roe-based products (salted roe of cod, Alaskan Pollock, herring, pates and spreads, and delicatessen salmon caviar); dried salted fish; smoked fish and seafood; and canned products The product range includes about 250 items and the combined capacity of all the units is 24,000 tonnes per year. The majority of the products are sold under the company’s own brand, Veladis, which was introduced in 2012.
Most of the raw materials are imported from around 40 countries worldwide—with Norway, the UK, Spain, Iceland, the US, Estonia, and Canada being the primary suppliers. Annual imports amount to about 60,000 tonnes, or about 20 of Ukraine’s imports of fish and seafood, which makes Klion Group Company the largest player in the market. Local fish supplies include pike perch, bream, carp, roach, crucian carp, and pike—these species are saltand dry-cured and traded as snacks, which are very popular among beer-lovers from Eastern and Central Europe. The distribution channels comprise wholesalers of fish as raw material, selling fish in crates; sales under the Veladis brand directly to national retail chains, and through distributors to smaller shops, and restaurants; and sales via its own chain of Veladis stores located in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhya. An EU-approval number for the processing complex in 2016 opened new opportunities and new markets— the company now exports to the US, Israel, Spain, Germany, the Baltic states, Hungary, Poland, and other EU countries. Annual exports reach 2,000 tonnes.
Klion Group Company
K
lion Group’s first day of business was 7 December 2005. At the time the company was involved purely in trading fish and seafood purchased from other Ukrainian importers, but the management had greater plans and visions.
Sergey Kardash, co-owner and CEO of Klion Group Company
The company has cold storages with a total area of 15,000 sq. m, which can stock about 12,000 tonnes of products at –18 degrees C, and its own logistics center. The annual turnover is over EUR140 million. Before the war, the company employed 1,400 people.
Only 50 kilometers from the war Since the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022, Klion Group has not stopped its activities for a single day. The pressure has been extremely high as the company’s
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