Current state and development prospects of Ukraine’s food industry

Abstract

The food industry is one of the most important industries for the country's economy and is able to ensure the competitiveness of Ukrainian food products on the international market. The purpose of the paper is to research current state and development prospective of the state of the food industry in Ukraine. The study has brought the following results. It was determined that the food industry occupies the first place in terms of the volume of products sold, on a par with metallurgical production. After analyzing the dynamics of production volumes, it was determined that the food industry provides high rates of production growth, but a decline in production is observed for certain types of products, namely, butter, margarine, sauces, flour, bakery and pasta products. It was determined that the main share of the market belongs to large manufacturers who have a developed sales network and offer consumers a wide range of products. It was determined that the level of profitability of food industry enterprises is low, in recent years there has been a negative trend of the anticipatory growth of production costs over the rate of profit growth. In modern conditions, in addition to the traditional factors that destabilize the development of the food industry, challenges caused by the consequences of the pandemic were added, and later, domestic enterprises faced new problems due to the war. Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to the suspension of some food industry enterprises due to hostilities. The stoppage of Ukrainian exports after the beginning of the conflict pushed up the food price index. A promising direction for the development of the food industry of domestic enterprises is adapted to modern conditions, expansion and search for new sales markets, as well as improvement of product quality. The food industry has a great impact on the country's economy and the volume of revenues for the budgets of various levels. Given the high saturation of the market, manufacturers of food products must win the trust of buyers and fight for the consumer's choice. Therefore, the main task for domestic enterprises is to determine new directions, means and stages of implementation of the foreign economic strategy, with the aim of optimizing the activities of enterprises.