Biosphere Corporation, one of the market leaders in the production and distribution of household goods, has approximately doubled its European business in 2024, sets the same goal for the next year and aims to create a “billion-dollar company”, the corporation’s founder and CEO Andriy Zdesenko said at the 10th Kyiv International Economic Forum.
“And we are growing. This year we will grow twice as much. And next year our ambition is to grow two more times,” he said at the forum’s closing session on Thursday evening.
Zdesenko noted that Biosphere currently operates in 27 markets already, and the most serious step to enter international markets was made after the start of full-scale Russian aggression.
“We acquired the Austrian company Alufix with the brand, c 4 branches and their production in Romania. Just when we had a 30% drop in turnover (in Ukraine), because our audience left, and now another (dropped) by 10%, because the constant increase in prices, unfortunately, people are getting poorer (…) the average check is falling,” – added the head of ‘Biosphere’.
According to him, thanks to the program of global development, expansion in Europe and in Asia, the corporation managed to continue to grow. He pointed out that Biosphere’s brands “Freken Bok”, Smile are leaders in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the company has a very strong presence in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan.
“Next year we plan to open production in Uzbekistan, because there is a 100-million-strong cluster there,” Zdesenko said.
He also noted that Biosphere has established an international advisory board that meets in Vienna and whose members include three Americans and two Europeans.
“These are world-class people who help us build a strategy for world expansion. Because we have a goal to create a billion-dollar company (…) There are such ambitions, and we are creating Biosphere 2.0,” Zdesenko emphasized.
According to him, the corporation has dozens of global competitors, working without restrictions, which are now present in Ukraine.
“And the main challenge for Biosphere is how to be at the same pace, to win with ideas, intelligence, design, wow products, innovation, with the same sophisticated equipment, and where to take all the millions of investments needed for this,” – added the founder and CEO.
He pointed out that along with this competition, the company is additionally spending resources to provide electricity, notably installing a 1.5 MW gas generator last week, helping the army and the community.
Among the challenges in operating in the European market, Zdesenko cited differences in corporate cultures, logistical challenges and financing challenges, as the parent company of National Bank Acts is limited in financing from Ukraine for its international subsidiaries.
“We want to do expansion, we want to produce for Europe, but we can’t finance: marketing, advertising, people, capex, support, growth…,” he stated.
Biosphere Corporation has been working in Ukraine for more than 25 years. Its product portfolio includes more than 1 thousand items under 16 own trademarks (“Freken BOK”, “Fainiy Bonus”, Vortex, Lykit, Smile, Smile Baby, Superfresh, Bambik, Novita, Lady Cotton, Alufix, PRO service, GoWipes, “Chista Peremoga”, Pany Blisk and PoketMon). The corporation is an official distributor of such international brands as TORK, Selpak and Fantom.
The corporation’s capacities in Ukraine are represented by three plants with a total production area of 35 thousand square meters in Dnepropetrovsk, Kiev and Khmelnitsky regions, as well as logistics complexes with an area of 30 thousand square meters. m. Together with the French Groupe Lemoine, Biosphere also owns a cotton products plant in Estonia with an area of 8.5 thousand square meters.
At the end of 2023, a new FOOD direction was opened with its own production Cupsoul, represented by such tea brands as Graff, Ritz Barton and others.
Average price per hectare of land in 2023, UAH
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Change in prices of food raw materials from Ukraine (forecast up to 2025), %
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Investment revenues after the end of hostilities may continue, 74% of Ukrainians surveyed believe so, 16% do not believe in it and another 10% bother to answer, according to the results of the Gradus Research survey of professional mobility of Ukrainians against the background of human capital crisis.
According to it, 84% of respondents believe in the creation of new jobs after the end of hostilities, 13% do not believe and another 5% found it difficult to answer.
“Attracting older people to the labor market is another stream that is now being discussed widely in the business community. 70% of people of retirement age are willing to consider a job after retirement. The reason is the same: pensions are small, insufficient, people are ready to work as long as they can,” said Eugenia Bliznyuk, founder and director of the research company, during the presentation of the study at the Kyiv International Economic Forum (KIEF) on Thursday.
According to her, the main barriers that are important for the elderly are the limited number of vacancies for them.
As for Ukrainians in general, the majority consider changing profession as a real step to improve the quality of life: more than 64% of respondents are ready to learn a new profession to remain competitive in the labor market.
In addition, 73% of respondents noted that they have changed their occupation at least once, 18% have changed their job more than three times in the last three years.
The majority of respondents wishing to change jobs in the next year prefer to find employment in Ukraine – 82%. However, 9% consider the possibility of working abroad, which emphasizes the importance of creating promising jobs within the country.
Decent salary level (67%), social package (40%) and official employment (40%), comfortable working conditions (39%) are the most important for the interviewed Ukrainians when choosing a place of work.
Also 70% of respondents noted that their main motive for changing profession is the opportunity to receive a higher salary. Other important factors include flexible working hours and job security after training. This indicates that Ukrainians strive for a work-life balance.
At the same time, among the main barriers that complicate mastering a new profession, the surveyed Ukrainians named high cost of training (55%), difficulty in acquiring the necessary skills (38%) and insufficient level of skills (34%).
The majority of surveyed citizens support the idea that women can work in traditionally “male” fields (58%), but barriers remain. The main difficulties for women in such occupations are the physical characteristics of the occupations (69%), the difficulty of balancing work and family (43%), stereotypes (36%), unequal pay (30%) and lack of appropriate infrastructure (26%).
Germany increased exports of goods to Russia by 3.6% in September compared to August, according to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany (Destatis). At the same time, imports from Russia rose by 20.1%.
On a year-on-year basis, September exports to Russia rose 5.6%, but imports from Russia fell 34.4%. Overall, between January and September, German exports from Germany to Russia decreased by 18.5% year-on-year, while imports decreased by 53.6%.
Total seasonally adjusted German exports fell 1.7% in September to €128.2 billion, the first decline since June. By contrast, imports rose 2.1% to €111.3 billion.
Exports to the European Union in September were down 1.8% from August, while shipments to non-EU countries fell 1.6%. Exports to the US increased by 4.8%, exports to China decreased by 3.7% and exports to the UK decreased by 4.9%. Imports from the EU increased by 1.6% and imports from outside the EU increased by 2.6%. In particular, imports from China increased by 5.6%, from the US decreased by 0.3% and from the UK by 0.6%.
Germany’s foreign trade balance surplus narrowed to €17 billion in September from €21.4 billion in August.
Exports of grains and oilseeds from Ukraine, mln tons
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