Western consumers should be aware of Ukrainian products to buy them not only for quality, but also in solidarity with Ukraine – owner of TM Voda UA

An exclusive interview with Dmytro Nikiforov, the owner of AT Market (Kyiv), which bottles Carpathian high-mountain water under the Voda UA brand, about the situation in the industry and the business environment that has developed after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

- Let's first speak about the indicators, pre-war and post-war market shares, sales volumes.

- Our market share in percentage is insignificant. Today, I will estimate it at up to 1.5%. But at the same time, with such a market share, we are the 11th or 12th producer in the country in terms of quantities consumed out of more than 150 legal water producers. This place in the market indicates how this market is monopolized, that it is not a market-based one, and that there is no such imbalance in any country in the world.

— This is not caused by administrative difficulties in obtaining license to develop water sources, right?

- No, only with the difficulties of marketing. There is one gigantic company in Ukraine that has "concreted" its place in the market by market-based and non-market methods, which makes it very difficult to gain a market share. With only 1.5% of the market, we are barely in the top 10 manufacturers, so you can see how the situation is with the 140 other manufacturers that are not in the top 10. However, everyone survives somehow. At the same time, we occupy the second place in the HoReCa market. That is, there is a huge distance between the first and second place, but we managed to gain a foothold within the country in second place in this segment. This is, as it were, a great success. Unfortunately, we are unlikely to replace the leader, but we intend to expand. The second place among almost 160 manufacturers is a good indicator that