Lactalis in Ukraine: 25 years of challenges and achievements. And this is just the beginning!

A quarter of a century ago, a milestone event took place in Mykolaiv to have a great impact on the recent history of Ukraine. The Lactalis Group* (France), one of the largest dairy producers in Europe**, came here to be the first foreign investor in the Ukrainian dairy industry. With a strong belief in agricultural and industrial potential of our country, the Group has established a joint French-Ukrainian enterprise for butter and casein production on the basis of the Mykolayiv Municipal Dairy Plant on February 15, 1996.

As Lactalis entered the Ukrainian market, it became a turning point for the development of the country’s dairy industry. Not only we established high standards of dairy products manufacturing by investing hundreds of millions of euros in complete technical and technological modernization of Mykolayiv plant (and later — our second plant in Pavlograd), but also, we supported the development of animal husbandry in Ukraine! Lactalis became the first dairy manufacturer in the country to finance the procurement of raw materials in the mid-1990s. For this purpose, milk collection points in the villages were established equipped with mini-laboratories and milk cooling tanks. Furthermore, we were the first to fund and support the formation of dairy farms in Ukraine that would meet European standards and produce milk of the highest quality.

Today, our manufacturing sites have the best up-to-date equipment in Ukraine, with the HACCP being implemented, a certified integrated food quality and safety management system in accordance with ISO standards. Our dairy products under the brands Président, Dolce, Lactonia, Lactel, Fanny, and LokoMoko have become the synonyms of quality for millions of consumers — and not only in Ukraine. In 2016, Lactalis was one of the first companies in the country to receive an approval from the competent authorities for exporting our products to the European Union. Since 2017, we are one of the largest exporters of dairy products made in Ukraine.

Within our 25-year history in Ukraine, Lactalis has brought up several generations of international level professionals, and this is another achievement we are very proud of. Investment in staff development, particularly the young people, has always been as important for us as investment in production, and it remains an integral part of the strategy of the company development.

By the way, in 2020 we joined the “Pact for Youth — 2025”. By signing it, we have committed ourselves (for the second time already) to promote talents, help developing practical skills and create opportunities for young professionals.  We have achieved a lot over these 25 years. We reformed the country’s dairy industry in the 1990s. We instilled the culture of consumption of high-quality dairy products to the Ukrainian consumers in the 2000s. We let the consumers from all over the world unveil the quality and the taste of Ukrainian dairy products in the 2010s. With all these steps, we created our history. The history of Lactalis in Ukraine. And we believe, this is just the beginning!

*BESNIER was renamed in Lactalis in 1999.
**As for the early 1990s.