Though bread products now abound in Ukraine's capital, the founder of Universal bakery shows that real success lies in catering to customers' tastes
ing in France, Salman decided to take his knowledge – and knife – to Kyiv and in 1995 he founded Universal bakery, and brought sliced bread to the capital.
“The first toast Kyivans tasted was ours,” boasted Maxim Kushnaryov Universal general manager.
The main difference between toast bread and the ever-present baton is not that it is sliced, but that when it is toasted, it stays soft on the inside while other breads become dry. Today it is only one of the more than 30 types of bread the bakery produces.
While toast bread was the company’s first product, it is not the most popular and is no longer the sole toast bread in the city. Dmitri Kashyryn, manager of Kyiv supermarket Velyka Kyshenya doesn’t even stock it. But he does stock Universal’s baguettes, Georgian bread called khachapuri and delicatessen bread.
It is Universal’s attention to customers’ tastes that won over Kashyryn. “The bread is high quality, and we don’t have to keep track of what sells because the bakery does that for us.”
The bakery supplies bread to all of Kyiv’s major supermarkets and stores in several nearby small towns. The Cabinet of Ministers canteen serves Universal toast bread, and several local restaurants offer Universal’s rolls. The only Universal bakery is in Kyiv, but the bakery fills orders from as far away as Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk. While they have no immediate plans to open additional bakeries, if Billa opens a supermarket in Kharkiv, Universal would follow suit.
The bakery’s unusual breads enjoy wide popularity, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into huge success. These are tough times for the Ukrainian food industry. In recent years the price of grain, milk and other major products has increased faster than Kyiv salaries. The Ukrainian Agrimarket weekly report cites this as the major reason behind low demand for food products.
And the bread market, in particular, has felt the squeeze. Five years ago Universal had more customers than today. Kushnaryov attributes the decline in sales to a three-fold price hike due to the skyrocketing cost of raw materials.
But by introducing new bread products at cheaper prices than the foreign imports, the bakery has stayed on its feet.
Kashyryn has been buying Universal bread since his supermarket opened in April.
“They see what customers prefer and make new products,” Kyshenya said.
These products include onion bread with peppers for traditional Ukrainian tastes, farmers bread made from a mixture of rye and wheat, soy bread, and what they call delicatessen bread. These rye bread slices are filled with figs, sesame seeds and nuts. While there are several types of imported delicatessen bread, Universal’s is one of the few locally made and locally affordable. Six slices of Universal’s delicatessen bread costs about Hr 2, while international brands can run up to 10 times that amount.
It was for the city’s 6,000 Arab residents that they decided to make domestic Arabic bread, or saj, several months ago. To adapt it to Ukrainian tastes the bakery packages it with recipes explaining how to serve it. While Arabs usually spread hummus on saj, the company suggests Ukrainians spread mayonnaise or ketchup on it, sprinkle some vegetables on top, roll it up and eat it like a sandwich.
Saj has proved popular and the company plans to start making another kind of Arabic bread in the future.
While the bakery will not say which of its products sells best, Salman knows his favorite: “saj is the best.”
