Healthy eating and “humanocracy” – the making of Russia’s biggest food brand – bne IntelliNews
Organic food, fresh produce, healthy eating. To many minds, these are part of a quintessentially Western craze, compatible only with gleaming Californian open-plan kitchens and European whole food stores. Vkusvill begs to differ. It has been offering nutritious food to Russia’s conscious consumers for 12 years, and with no small degree of success.
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Organic food, fresh produce, healthy eating. To many minds, these are part of a quintessentially Western craze, compatible only with gleaming Californian open-plan kitchens and European whole food stores. Vkusvill begs to differ. It has been offering nutritious food to Russia’s conscious consumers for 12 years, and with no small degree of success.
It started when Andrei Krivenko noticed how difficult it was to get fresh milk and dairy products in Moscow. Most shops only offered UHT milk, with a long shelf life and a vanishingly small microbe count. Using a billion rubles of his own savings (equivalent to $30,000 at the time), Krivenko started a stall in Moscow’s unglamorous Strogino market selling fresh dairy products. Now, that same idea – fresh and healthy produce – is the basis of a foodtech company with 1,300 stores in 64 Russian cities offering not only dairy, but Vkusvill-branded produce from across the range of foodstuffs. In an exclusive interview with bne IntelliNews, Yury Alasheev of Vkusvill’s board of directors discussed why Vkusvill resonates with Russians and how the company coped with such rapid growth.
Conscious consumption
Just a week ago, at a meeting of the company’s top leaders, Vkusvill re-affirmed its core commitment: making fresh, natural products convenient and affordable for everyone. “We believe that that’s a total disruption to the market,” said Alasheev.
The figures corroborate this assertion. “We’re the fastest-growing FMCG brand in Russia,” Alasheev pointed out. “And that’s not calculated on a low base – we’re also the largest FMCG brand in Russia. There’s a lot of demand for what we offer.”
That offering can be summarised as conscious consumption. Vkusvill’s model consists of selecting a range of products which are organic, fresh, and free from additives or harmful products. That means that it doesn’t sell sugary carbonated sodas, vodka or double-pasteurised milk. It vets the products on the shelves to ensure that they are conducive to a healthy diet, so that shoppers can be confident that whatever they buy will be good for them.
Already in the top three retailers in Russia’s capital, Vkusvill soon expects to be selling more than European giants, with an estimated top-line growth of over 40% this year. This popularity has put paid to the myth that healthy eating is the preserve of a Western clique of super-mums. With Russian life expectancy at a record high (73 years), market researcher GfK says that 58% of Russians now take health factors into account when they shop. “We believe that more and more people will opt for fresher and healthier choices and conscious consumption,” Alasheev said. “And that includes fewer food miles and a better internal culture in the company,” he added.
ESG
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