October 29, 2025, Kyiv, International Exhibition Center (IEC)
Where is the profit during a crisis? How to scale up agricultural processing, attract investment, implement AI, and overcome the shortage of personnel in the food industry?
Experts, entrepreneurs, and leaders of the Ukrainian food sector will provide answers to these questions during the Agro2Food Profit Forum 2025 — the main event of the year for food producers and processors.
The forum will take place on October 29, 2025, in Kyiv, at the International Exhibition Center, as part of the Agro2Food exhibition of technologies, equipment, and solutions for agro-processing and the food industry.
5 panels. 1 day. Maximum practical benefit.
Panel #1. THE ECONOMICS OF ADDED VALUE IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY. Where is the profit in a crisis?
In partnership with the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
With the participation of representatives of industry associations, clusters, distributors, and owners of processing businesses, who will share real-life cases of development, scaling, and optimization of production.
Key message: To show how Ukrainian producers are finding new sources of profit even in times of turbulence.
Panel No. 2. THE ECONOMICS OF INVESTMENT AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION
In partnership with the Reform Support Team (RST) of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine and ProConsalting. With the participation of a representative of Oschadbank (on agribusiness support programs), the owner of an agricultural processing company (with a scaling case study), and a supplier of processing equipment (on technological innovations).
Key message: How to attract investment during wartime, develop exports, and implement sustainability strategies?
Key topics:
Panel No. 3. ECONOMY OF INNOVATION. “Digitalization. AI. Food processing”
In partnership with the Ukrainian Food Manufacturers Association U-Food and the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance.
Key message: Artificial intelligence is already changing the Ukrainian food industry.
Key topics:
Panel No. 4. HUMAN RESOURCE ECONOMICS. Labor shortage in the food industry: challenges and solutions.
In partnership with the Job Platform for Food Technologists and Manufacturers and Odessa National Technological University.
With the participation of American University Kyiv.
Key topics:
Panel No. 5. THE ECONOMICS OF UNIQUENESS
Main message: Innovative products, intellectual property, and craftsmanship as a profit strategy.
Key topics:
Agro2Food Profit Forum 2025 is:
Agro2Food statistics.
At the exhibition venue, which will reach 4,000 m2, over 120 exhibitors will present all the key achievements in agricultural processing and the food industry.
Organizer:
Premier Expo:
Where and when:
October 29, 2025
International Exhibition Center (IEC), Kyiv
More about the program: https://agro2food.com.ua/program/profit-forum
Media contact:
Olena Zhoga, Conference Manager, Premier Expo
+380 (67) 789 27 09
Agro2Food — Building an economy of added value together.
See you at the main event of the sincere Ukrainian autumn!
Tickets for the exhibition: https://agro2food.com.ua/visitors/registration
Interfax-Ukraine — information partner
Source: https://interfax.com.ua/news/press-release/1112280.html
In September 2025, Ukraine processed a record monthly volume of rapeseed, exceeding 250,000 tons. For the first time in a long time, domestic processing exceeded monthly exports of this crop by 236,000 tons, according to the analytical industry agency APK-Inform.
“At the same time, in late September and early October, trade in this sector slowed down due to the expected decision on the mechanism for exempting soybean and rapeseed producers from the 10% export duty. Against this backdrop, the supply of rapeseed decreased,” analysts noted.
Experts added that a number of processors reported low rapeseed supplies to enterprises and the likely completion of its processing and transition to sunflower, stocks of which were accumulated quite well in September.
Nevertheless, plants raised their demand prices for rapeseed in an attempt to attract more offers, to UAH 23,000-23,500/ton CPT and above for real volumes and large batches, according to APK-Inform.
Sunflower processing in Argentina in August 2025 increased to 488 thousand tons compared to 330 thousand tons in the same month of 2024, according to the APK-Inform agency, citing data from Oil World. At the same time, the figure was only slightly lower than in July of this year (491,000 tons).
According to experts, processing in September and October will continue to significantly exceed last year’s figures, as Argentine processors are taking advantage of the decline in sunflower harvests in Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and Bulgaria.
Argentine sunflower oil is currently the most competitive on the world market and is sold at significant discounts compared to products from the Black Sea region. Thus, exports in August amounted to 172,000 tons, compared to 116,000 tons a year earlier. The main destinations are India (90,000 tons compared to 21,000 tons a year earlier) and Iraq (14,000 tons compared to 31,000 tons).
According to data from the Argentine Ministry of Agriculture, the sunflower harvest in 2025 exceeded forecasts and amounted to 5.3 million tons, compared to 3.9 million tons in 2024. The country’s authorities expect to maintain high production levels in 2026 by increasing the area under cultivation by 10% annually.
Analysts at the Experts Club note that the growth in processing and exports from Argentina is putting pressure on the global sunflower oil market, lowering prices and increasing competition.
For Ukraine, one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of oil, this could mean a reduction in export revenues and the need to actively seek new markets, as well as to focus on deeper processing and improving product quality.
The Ma’Rizhany Industrial Park (Zhytomyr region) plans to double its industrial hemp processing capacity, according to Dmytro Kysilevsky, deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Development, on Facebook.
He noted that as of early August 2025, the plant will be able to process 10,000 tons of hemp per year. Increasing the area under cultivation to 4,000 hectares will allow the plant to reach a processing capacity of 20,000 tons of raw materials per year. In the 2025 season, there will be more than 1,600 hectares of industrial crops within a 20 km radius of the park.
“The Ma’Rizhany industrial park is actively persuading farmers in the Zhytomyr region to switch from unstable and politicized grain supplies to the European Union to long-term contracts with Ukrainian customers for a new, promising, and traditional crop for Ukraine. Well, the demand for hemp fiber is growing on the world market, which is the best financial guarantee for farms that will become partners of the industrial park,” Kysilevsky said.
The MP expressed confidence that the industrial park has enough free space to accommodate the next stages of deep processing of industrial hemp.
In May 2025, the largest industrial hemp primary processing enterprise in Ukraine began operations in the Ma’Rizhany industrial park. Ma’Rizhany Hemp Company renovated an old flax factory and built a modern production facility with a capacity of 14,000 tons per year of long fiber for the textile industry. It is expected that related processing products, such as short fiber and chaff, will find application in nonwoven materials (heat and sound insulation), paper, building blocks, chipboard, and bioplastics.
As reported, IP “Ma’Ryzhany” occupies about 30 hectares, the territory of a former flax processing plant. It will be the first park in Europe for the primary processing of bast crops. It was entered in the Register of IPs in August 2024. It is planned to create more than 700 jobs.
PJSC “Lviv Regional Production Fish Factory” has opened an innovative fish processing plant in Lviv region, according to the press service of the State Agency for Land Reclamation, Fisheries and Food Programs.
According to the report, the plant’s capacity of 6,800 square meters allows it to process up to 25 tons of raw materials and produce 12.5 tons of finished products daily. Both fish from its own farms and imported raw materials are used for production.
The plant has three levels: two production floors and a technical floor where the engineering systems are located. The space is divided into four main areas: ramps for loading raw materials and shipping finished products, “wet” rooms for processing raw, salted, and smoked fish, “dry” rooms for the production of preserves and semi-finished products, and sanitary and utility rooms for personnel.
The plant has implemented international food quality and safety management systems (ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 22000), which will enable the company to not only supply the domestic market but also export its products.
Once full production capacity is reached, 283 new jobs will be created. The company currently employs 82 people. Last year, it produced 1,382 tons of products and paid UAH 6.4 million in taxes to the budget.
Plans include expanding the export line, introducing biotechnologies for waste disposal, creating a related feed production facility, and entering new international markets.
“We are honored to open the largest fish processing plant in Eastern Europe. This is not just a production facility — it is a strategic step in the development of national aquaculture. We are not only investing in processing, but also changing our approach: from farming to delivering high-quality, safe, and tasty end products to consumers. Thanks to modern technologies, we are improving recipes and striving to change the culture of fish consumption in our country,” said Taras Vysotsky, Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture.
According to him, the ministry will continue to work on promoting the consumption of domestically produced fish among Ukrainians. In particular, fish continues to be purchased at auctions on the Prozorro.Prozori platform for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, penitentiary institutions, law enforcement agencies, etc.
The processing of alternative oilseeds in the new season may increase in case of signing the bill containing “soybean-rape amendments”, but not significantly, with the processing of rapeseed amounting to 500-550 thsd tonnes, soybeans – 2.7 mln tonnes, sunflower – 13.6-13.8 mln tonnes, APK-Inform news agency reported.
“Indeed, the export duty for soybean and rapeseed may make the domestic prices for oilseeds more attractive for the processing companies, but there are a number of factors that may limit the processing volumes, including the expected lower harvest of alternative oilseeds and higher harvest of sunflower, as well as the existing difficulties with the sale of the processed products,” – the analysts explained.
According to the experts, the potential of rapeseed harvest in Ukraine is decreasing as the harvesting campaign progresses, as it shows much lower yields than expected. Currently, APK-Inform estimates the gross harvest of this crop at about 3 mln tonnes (-18% compared to 2024/25 MY).
At the same time, the competition in this sector between exporters and processors will remain high even with the export duty, as a number of companies already have the obligations under the foreign economic contracts, and the supply of raw materials from farmers remains low, which will support the prices of rapeseed, while the prices of rapeseed oil are still under pressure due to the oil market conditions and the increase of oilseed production in the EU.
“Our estimate of rapeseed processing in Ukraine in 2025/26 season does not exceed 500-550 thsd tonnes (as compared to the previous season). At the same time, if the margin prospects in this sector improve, we may revise the estimate upwards,” the analysts predict.
The prospects of the soybean sector, in their opinion, are also ambiguous.
The area of soybean planting in 2025 turned out to be bigger than forecasted, but according to APK-Inform, the harvest is unlikely to exceed the previous year’s figure and, given the growth of the yield potential, is expected to reach 6.3 mln tonnes (-8%). However, this could be one of the largest figures for the industry, which could have a corresponding impact on prices and keep it attractive for processors.
In the new season, subject to the export duty on soybeans, the processing of soybeans may reach 2.7 mln tonnes (+3%) and become a new record for the industry.
Another important factor will be the amount of sunflower harvested and the margin of its processing.
“It is expected that the production of this oilseed may grow by 8% to about 14 mln tonnes, and the crushing – to 13.6-13.8 mln tonnes, which may slightly reduce the interest of large mills to alternative oilseeds,” APK-Inform summarized.
