"Fire does not burn the hardened". How the founder of Vogniar from TrO is rebuilding his business after the attack

On the night of October 25, a Russian attack destroyed in Kyiv, one of the warehouses of the Ukrainian manufacturer of hot sauces Vognyar. Photos of the charred glass jars were circulated in the Ukrainian media.

"How big are the losses? To say very large would be about half of it," the post company.

The most affected was the marmalade line of sauces sold under the names Greyhound Chilean, Plum Kiss, and Cranberry Song. It was in this warehouse that most of its stocks were kept.

Vognyar was founded in Kyiv in 2016. It is a small niche business, income which last year amounted to UAH 8.8 million.

The owner of the company, Valentyn Kalashnyk, serves in the unmanned systems unit of the 114th Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. To the correspondent LIGA.net managed to get in touch with him and talk about how Vognyar will be restored.

How the company stabilizes its work

How big was the destroyed warehouse and will you rebuild it?

About 500-600 square meters, up to a thousand. It was a rented location. We had our equipment, computer equipment, and inventory there. I don't know if the owner will rebuild it.

What are you doing right now to get things going?

Since I am in the Defense Forces, I can join the process only remotely.

Whenever I can, I talk to suppliers, creditors, and clients by phone. We agree on deferrals and easing of financial conditions. We do our best not to let people down, so that at some point they are prepared for the fact that we may not be able to fulfill something.

The second area is an attempt to apply for government programs that compensate for business losses from the war. Our lawyers are dealing with this now. And the third is to support the team and the staff, because it is stressful for people.

How are your partners reacting to the situation?

The vast majority are very loyal and supportive. For example, we were given new equipment on very favorable terms on lease. It is possible to place an order for printing on credit with installments for several months. So I think everything will be fine.

Do you plan to relocate production and warehouses to another region?

It was happening little by little. Before the war, we bought the remains of an old school in the village of Nahirna, Zhashkiv district, Cherkasy region. We started to rebuild it, but the war put it on hold. Last year, the repairs were resumed, and it is there that the processes from Kyiv are gradually being transferred.

There is about a hectare of land, almost two dozen greenhouses with a total area of about 2,000 square meters.

Some of the processes have already been transferred. But all this is very investment-intensive, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. Therefore, it is very difficult to do it all at once.

It is almost impossible to get grants from the state for logistics operations that are not clear to it.

The state requires a business plan. If you say in your business plan that you don't make money but do it for security, they won't approve your business plan.

Before the war, we still had a procurement base in Velyki Kopani, Kherson region. We grow mostly only super hot and exotic varieties in greenhouses. Ukrainian peppers are grown for us by farmers. When Kopani came under occupation, we processed it first in Kyiv, then in Nahirna. We process 60-100 tons of pepper per season.

Sauce in exchange for a donation

Earlier, the figure of $200,000 in estimated losses was made public. Has the estimate changed?

The figure is still there. This is an approximate estimate of the property that was there.

What are you going to do in the future? What are your plans?

Do you know what our team came up with?

They are now picking up everything that has survived in that ashes. Because many retail customers have written to us to support us. They are ready to buy these burnt jars of products as souvenirs. We decided that selling people charred jars was not the best option. But asking people to make a donation to the army is a good idea. In return, they can get our products from the burnt warehouse as a souvenir.

Selling a couple of hundred of these cans won't earn you much, and it's important to draw the attention of fellow citizens to the fact that the war will not end without everyone's efforts.

And we need to bring people back to the way we donated everything at the beginning of the war.

So, now everything that is relatively normal in the warehouse will be found and cleaned a little bit. And we will send it as a gift to everyone who makes donations.

The campaign will be called "The fire of the fierce does not burn" – these are the words from Taras Shevchenko's poem "Gamalya".

The conditions are simple: make a donation for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to any of the reputable foundations. You can send a private message to the company on the Facebook you need to send a screenshot of the bank transfer, your surname, name and patronymic, phone number, and the number of the Nova Poshta branch where you want to send the gift.