Biosphere Corporation to double European business in 2024, plans to keep this pace in 2025

Biosphere Corporation, one of the market leaders in the production and distribution of household goods, approximately doubled its European business in 2024, sets the same goal for next year and aims to create a "billion-dollar company," said founder and CEO of the corporation Andriy Zdesenko at the tenth Kyiv International Economic Forum.

"And we are growing. This year we will double. And next year our ambition is to double again," he said at the final session of the forum on Thursday evening.

Zdesenko noted that Biosphere currently operates in 25 markets, and the most serious step towards entering international markets was made after the start of the full-scale Russian aggression.

"We acquired the Austrian company Alufix with its brand, with four branches and their production in Romania. Just when our turnover (in Ukraine) fell by 30%, because our audience left, and now (it has fallen) by another 10%, because of the constant increase in prices, unfortunately, people are getting poorer… the average bill is falling," added the head of Biosphere.

According to him, thanks to the global development program, expansion in Europe and Asia, the corporation managed to continue growing. He pointed out that Biosphere's brands Freken Bok, Smile are leaders in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the company has a very strong presence in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan.

"Next year we plan to open production in Uzbekistan, because there is a 100-million-strong cluster there," Zdesenko said.

He also noted that Biosphere has created an international advisory board, which meets in Vienna and whose members are three Americans and two Europeans.

"These are world-class people who help us build a strategy for global expansion because our goal is to create a billion-dollar company… There are such ambitions, and we are creating Biosphere 2.0," Zdesenko emphasized.

According to him, the corporation has dozens of global competitors operating without restrictions, which are now present in Ukraine.

"And the main challenge for Biosphere is how to keep up the same pace, win with ideas, intelligence, design, wow-products, innovations, with the same complex equipment, and where to get all the millions of investments that are needed for this," the founder and CEO added.

He pointed out that along with this competition, the company additionally spends resources on providing electricity, in particular, last week it installed a 1.5 MW gas generator, helps the army and society.

Among the challenges in working on the European market, Zdesenko named differences in corporate cultures, logistical challenges and challenges in financing, since the parent company, according to acts of the National Bank, is limited in financing its international subsidiaries from Ukraine.

"We want to expand, we want to produce for Europe, but we cannot finance ourselves: marketing, advertising, people, capex, support, growth," he stated.