How BIOFACH 2023 helped Ukrainian organic watermelons and melons to enter the EU markets

The agricultural enterprise Danube Agrarian from Odesa region, which specializes in growing natural vegetables, fruits, cereals, and producing animal products, became one of the exhibitors of the National Pavilion of Ukraine at the world’s leading organic fair BIOFACH 2023, which took place in Nuremberg (Germany) on 14-17 February.

During BIOFACH 2023 the company had plenty of B2B meetings with potential partners and is already expanding its export opportunities. Based on the results of this year’s fair Danube Agrarian is planning to deliver 200 tonnes of watermelons and 100 tonnes of melons to Romania and Germany.

Preparation matters

According to the company, BIOFACH is a true must-have for the organic sector. That is why Danube Agrarian participates in the fair every year. The developments of the previous years helped the agricultural enterprise to export watermelons, peaches, melons, and grain crops to France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, the Republic of Korea, Japan, the UK, and the Netherlands.

“In spite of many years of experience as an exhibitor, we have a responsible attitude to presenting our products and company in general. Preparation matters, so we traditionally designed our brochures, merch, and appointed meetings with the partners we cooperate with”, said Yulia Vasilioglo, Export Manager.

The farming enterprise continues to foster the organic consumption culture in our country and make foreign buyers fall in love with Ukrainian products — that was the strategy and selected course of Roman Diazhuk, the company owner who tragically died in a road accident in June 2023.

Therefore, without changing the traditions, the company is expecting the call for BIOFACH 2024.

Today Danube Agrarian’s products are widely presented in the national retail chains such as Goodwine, WineTime, Silpo, Novus, Velyka Kyshenia, MegaMarket, and specialized health food stores, and foreign consumers can find Ukrainian organic products on the shelves of the Lithuanian supermarket chain Rimi Baltic.

New generation organic brand

The enterprise abandoned chemical fertilizers, pesticides, GMO, and preservatives which increase yields and takes care about its soil. According to the export manager, the company’s scale cannot be measured with hectares of land or amount of harvest because they do not only grow organic products, but also brings up a new generation of conscious people who care about their health and nutrition.

“With our work we want to show that agriculture in Ukraine is a profitable and promising area which is developing rapidly”, says Yulia Vasilioglo.

To support the Ukrainian organic sector and help small farmers to develop and sell their products to large retail chains, Danube Agrarian unites them under the Organic Hub trademark.

Moreover, in recent years the company has been actively developing its processing, that’s why Danube Agrarian has expanded its product range with organic juices, canned products, pastille, jam, honey, and sun-dried tomatoes. Thus, the company had a collaboration with Andrii Bihlenko, a processor from Chornobaivka, which yielded the Ukraine’s first sun-dried tomatoes.

“In 2022 we planned to diversify the range of our field crops, but due to the russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine we had to change our vector of development. Probably, something went wrong, but we did not stop and have new products now”, says Yulia Vasilioglo.

Despite the challenges due to the large-scale war, the farming enterprise continues to take care about the community residents and makes it best to keep people in Ukraine and make it comfortable for them to work and support the Ukrainian economy. Today 70 community residents work on the farm. In addition, since the launch of the full-scale war the farm gave a part of its vegetable storage to the school to arrange a shelter from shelling and delivers their products to the soldiers at the frontline.

We do not stop and continue to conquer the hearts of buyers around the world with the Ukrainian products.

For reference

The National Pavilion of Ukraine was organised by the Entrepreneurship and Export Promotion Office and national project Diia.Business in partnership with the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, Organic Ukraine NGO, Ukrainian Berries Association, and Organic Initiative.

Supported by:

• The European Union and German Government within the “EU4Business: SME Competitiveness and Internationalisation” programme implemented by the German federal company Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH;

• EBRD and funded by Switzerland through the EBRD's Small Business Impact Fund (donors to the SBIF are Italy, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA, Taiwan Business - EBRD Technical Cooperation Fund and Norway);

• Switzerland within the framework of the Swiss-Ukrainian Programs “Higher Value Added Trade from the Organic and Dairy Sector in Ukraine” (QFTP) and “Organic Trade for Development in Eastern Europe” (OT4D);

• The project “German-Ukrainian Cooperation in Organic Agriculture” (COA) that is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture.