Dairy Alliance Group of Companies exports products to 27 countries for UAH 1 bln in 2024
In 2024, the Dairy Alliance Group of Companies, one of the leaders in milk processing in Ukraine, supplied its products to 27 countries worldwide, although in the prewar period, the geography of exports included 38 countries, Chairman of the supervisory board of the Group Serhiy Vovchenko said.
"Last year, we exported products for only about UAH 1 billion. This is very little. Despite the fact that we received about UAH 8.6 billion in revenue," he said at the Business Wisdom Summit 2025 on Friday.
Vovchenko said that a food processing enterprise, in order to be competitive, needs to clearly monitor three points: innovation, quality and price.
Speaking about Milk Alliance, he expressed confidence that there are no problems with the innovativeness and quality of its products. However, its cost is currently higher than in many European countries, where producers receive subsidies from the European budget. This makes Ukrainian dairy products uncompetitive in the international arena.
"The cost of raw materials in our dairy processing industry takes up 68-70% [of the entire cost price]. The state, business, associations need to work to ensure that we are competitive in the third component, in price. And then we will be known, much more widely and in demand, and the currency will come to the state. What is UAH 1 billion? It's nothing at all. We used to sell much more, we sold three times more for export. And now, unfortunately," the chairman of the supervisory board of the Milk Alliance Group said.
Vovchenko also said after a series of trips to international congresses, he was convinced of the uncompetitiveness of Ukrainian dairy products on the European market and the biased attitude towards Ukrainian producers on the part of European colleagues. In his opinion, state protectionism can solve this problem.
"The agreement on duty-free trade will end on June 5. And this is a very serious challenge for us. If it is not extended, we will lose. If a duty is added, we will not be competitive at all on the European market," he said and added that the way out of the situation is to increase exports to the countries of the Middle East and North Africa.
