The Ukrainian bakery industry has applied for the provision of electricity generators from international partners, organized for representatives of the Ukrainian agro-industrial complex by the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, the equipment can be delivered to Ukraine within one to two months.
At the same time, there is a shortage of generators all over the world, and the equipment purchased now can be delivered to Ukraine in January, Yuriy Duchenko, the First Vice President of the All-Ukrainian Association of Bakers and Director of Kyiv Khlib LLC (the Kyivkhlib brand), told Interfax-Ukraine.
“We have submitted applications to cover the needs for generators, the partners have responded, but this issue has not yet been resolved. We are promised them perhaps in a month, perhaps in two. Unfortunately, it is not known when the next shelling will take place and what it threatens us with. That is, this question the ministry is engaged in, but 99% of decisions need to be made independently and their decision falls on the shoulders of the producers,” the director specified.
According to him, the company has recently purchased 650 kW generators for its mill and bakery for more than EUR100,000 to ensure emergency operation, but he noted that such a solution does not allow powering the production for a long time. In addition, the electricity they produce costs 3-4 times more than electricity from the network.
“For bakeries, working on generators is an emergency mode. It is possible for half a day or a day. But it is impossible to ensure the constant operation of the enterprise on a generator. This also applies to technological issues, and such that generators need to be constantly maintained and refueled. It is very difficult now organize. But we have to provide it for emergencies,” Duchenko stressed.
According to him, the issue of selling bread and bakery products during planned and emergency power outages is not as acute as with other perishable products, and the main problem is the lack of communication and access to the Internet during a power outage.
“The main difficulty today arises in the fact that when the power goes out, the connection disappears. This is very critical. Even if we organize emergency operation of stores and production on generators, it is difficult to accept an order and ship products. It’s all tied up through computer networks. We had a case, that we made the products, but could neither print invoices nor contact the store,” the expert explained.
