Margarine products Ukrainian market is one of the most developed segments of the food industry and has the significant potential for the production increase, in particularly owing the actively developing market of veg oils. But in the recent few years in Ukraine there has been production decrease of the fat-and-oil and margarine commodities production.
What factors caused the current situation and are there any difficulties with the products realization on the domestic and global markets as well, and about the condition of the Ukrainian fat-and-oil industry to tell the Head of the Department on Industry work of Schedro TH Maxim Rybakov.
Note
Schedro TH LLC is one of the largest producers of margarine and sauce products and has been the leader in the fat-and-oil industry as the producer of the wide range of the food. Factories manufacturing products of Schedro TH (Lvov and Kharkov fat factories, Zaporozhye oil and fat factory), total in more than seventy-year history and proved to be leaders of Ukrainian production for a long time.
- Schedro was the leader on the margarine and mayonnaise commodities production in Ukraine in 2013/14 MY. What are the major priorities of your company?
Successful activity of the Trade House Schedro on the fat-and-oil market is the result of the professional work of every person working in the company, which is hard to be reached and harder to hold it. The company is the leader on the global market with the share of 45%. All the producing commodities are certified in accordance with ISO 9001:2009, ISO 22000:2005, HACCP.
The powerful technical base provides the significant advantages. Moreover the company's subdivisions provide the execution of the full cycle of works: from the raw-material purchasing and processing to the end-commodities realization.
- What was last year marked for your company by?
It was the challenge for the country's and company's economics. Thus, in the recent two years the temps of the growth of the confectionery and bakery industry slowed down, but in the past season our client's markets faced a fall of to 30% due to the complications with the Russian market cooperation. Besides the domestic market purchasing activity faced a decrease which also impacted the stated trend development. The currency exchange grew fast causing the planning complications. But our company tried to react fast on the events in order to be hand in hand with the buyers.
Meanwhile the centralized tender based system of purchasing and large-scale orders allow to purchase the domestic and import foreign raw-materials on the most profitable conditions for us and at the attractive price which is positively influencing the quality, the prime-cost of the end products and smoothing the currency exchange impact on the prime-cost formation.
We are trying to be the buyer oriented company. Thus we offered for clients entering the Asian markets the lineage of the fat-and-oil products with the 1-year use-by date. The EU oriented clients are offered the fatty acids low trans-isomer lineage.
- How do you control the quality of the wide range of the end commodities? Do you own the lab or attract the independent experts?
The quality system means the range of measures to be introduced and realized, including the availability of the modern equipment, lab work experience, and the standard procedures system building, participating in the interlab round of the results comparison, the internal and external audit.
In the Zaporozhye fat-and-oil plant there is the lab which one of the first was certified by the National Agency on the Certifying of Ukraine on the technical competency in accordance with the demands of the International Standard DSTU ISO/IEC 17025:2006. According to the received certificate the lab of the above mentioned plan is to realize the research of the products and the ingredients not only for own need but for other organizations also. The stated lab results are accepted by the EU.
- How did the control system change and is there any progress in it?
In the recent time there has been heightened interest for the fatty-acids' trans-isomer content in the food. Our company is working on the fats and margarines of the special use with the low content of the trans-isomers. While developing all these moments to be taken into attention. But we continue working on the our products' quality improvement.
- How do you characterize the current situation on the Ukrainian fat-and-oil market, in particular the margarine consumption volumes on the Ukrainian market in total? What are the features of 2014 and prospects?
The main features for the fat-and-oil market for industrial processing is the growth of the consumption of the special use fats. These are vegetable oil based milk fat replacers. The main factors of its development is the consumption increase, the lack of the natural raw-material and the developing of the new food. Besides the milk fat replacers using allows to widen the range of the producing products and to produce the balanced fat-and-oil content commodities.
To date our company produces nearly 25 kinds of milk fat replacers. We use the interesterification technology for them. In 10 months of 2014 the sales increased by 7% - to 25.82 thsd tonnes.
- What is you products' sales share on the domestic and export markets as well? Is there competition on the domestic market?
Of course there is hard competition on the domestic market, where the winner is the company with the stable business-processes. Of course the sales structure is very important in the competitive activity. On the B2B market the sales are made by 20 branches structurally devised by the three regions: Center, West, East, by servicing nearly 1100 clients. We have own wide sales net and able to delivery products from 20 kg to 1 thsd tonnes. The company logistics is based on the modern combined approach where the producing, storing and transporting logistics is one whole unit.
The high quality of the producing products gives us an opportunity to enter a lot of markets in other countries as well. Thus, in 2014 our products were first in time delivered to United Kingdom, Germany, Lithuania, Romania, Czechs Republic, Israel, USA and Canada. In 2014 we expect exports growth by 20% compared to 2013 owing the work with the new countries.
- In order to finish our conversation, please share the company's plans for the future.
We continue the realization of the general development strategy on the market in order to maximize the activity efficiency and improve the financial stability. Considering the current realties we plan to focus on the business-processes further optimization program realization. In 2015 we plan the development of the project in the sphere of the energy saving.
Interviewed by Svetlana Gnoevec
