The worldwide ready-to-eat meals market dimension is valued at USD 404.78 billion in 2024, and the market is projected to develop to USD 626.13 billion by 2032, in line with an evaluation by Fortune Enterprise Insights. The rising demand is primarily pushed by comfort – the trendy tempo of life provokes increasingly customers to depend on ready-made meals choices. On the similar time, an necessary benefit is the potential of long-term storage. These consumer preferences, in flip, are encouraging producers to make the most of superior applied sciences and supply out-of-the-box options. Amongst them is Ukrainian businessman Yevhenii Shevchenko, who has launched a revolutionary expertise for getting ready ready-to-eat, long-lasting meals. Importantly, one of many goal audiences for his invention contains essentially the most socially susceptible individuals – the disabled, low-income residents, and the homeless, in addition to these disadvantaged of regular diet in areas missing the required infrastructure.
Shevchenko’s profession path is essentially based mostly on household custom: his older family members additionally labored in public catering and meals provide. After receiving a level in Worldwide Financial Relations, he adopted an identical path, offering meals for budgetary, social, and industrial constructions for a few years.
“Working in meals provide within the social sphere at all times results in communication with socially susceptible teams,” Shevchenko displays. “Contemplating my expertise working in an enterprise of the affiliation of residents with disabilities since 2006, I carefully encountered the true issues of such teams, how unprotected they’re, and the way a lot they need assistance and help. This is among the most susceptible segments of our society, so I instantly determined to assist the city society of individuals with disabilities.” On this sector, Yevhenii centered on numerous social tasks geared toward supporting town’s disabled inhabitants and addressing their present issues, together with meals points. On the similar time, he studied and modernized the household expertise in offering meals for numerous budgetary and industrial constructions.
Since 2014, he has ventured into enterprise and based his personal firm. He instantly launched an innovation – a brand new expertise for getting ready prepared meals utilizing sterilization and packaging them in comfortable meals movie with an extended shelf life, known as “retort pouch.”
“The concept of creating this course – long-term storage meals – got here to me exactly throughout my work within the social sphere, together with at distant websites the place there aren’t any regular communications and correct residing situations,” recollects Yevhenii.
Shevchenko equipped his merchandise for prepared meals to state colleges and gymnasiums, academic and rehabilitation kids’s facilities, hospitals, industrial enterprises, correctional establishments, navy, rescue, and legislation enforcement constructions (together with the Nationwide Police and the Nationwide Guard), in addition to to socially susceptible teams reminiscent of grownup neuropsychiatric boarding colleges, orphanages, and societies of individuals with disabilities. In consequence, he achieved a full manufacturing cycle, releasing social establishments from the necessity to buy merchandise, cook dinner meals, and management the standard of all processes. The issue of product high quality and preservation was efficiently solved by his proposed preparation expertise utilizing sterilization and packaging in retort pouches.
Initially, his space of software was his native metropolis of Dnipro and your complete Dnipro area, an enormous space. He continues to work within the charitable sector, delivering full meals as humanitarian help to locations with out regular residing situations or electrical energy. From the very starting, Shevchenko was involved with implementing particular certification for meals security and high quality whereas concurrently modernizing the provision logistics chain in line with international requirements. He discovered making a community of kitchen factories, assembly particular technical situations, to be essentially the most handy for the total cycle of labor – in order that meals was ready 100% centrally and delivered to closing locations, the place it was reheated and served to customers. In accordance with the distinctive cooking technique, merchandise are cooked in a specifically designed autoclave below excessive strain in particular modes developed by technologists by means of years of testing. Sterilization in any respect phases ensures 100% hygiene. Along with long-term a number of testing of instruments, in addition they labored immediately with the merchandise: all dishes underwent strict laboratory management of organoleptic, physicochemical, microbiological, bacteriological, and radiological indicators. The ultimate stage is the revolutionary packaging, invented to interchange the same old tin or glass jars, which preserves all nutritional vitamins and minerals and maintains the style qualities.
The latter is critical as a result of Yevhenii Shevchenko’s firm provides ready-made dishes in line with conventional recipes – soups, cereals, legumes, potatoes with meat, mushrooms, and greens. The corporate is now creating traces of fish and seafood dishes and vegetarian choices. All these dishes have a well-recognized full look, in contrast to the usual consistency of cream soup or mashed substance typical for this kind of meals. Shevchenko personally participated in market monitoring to kind the assortment. Importantly, they preserve all properties for as much as 24 months with out preservatives and stabilizers. Set with further merchandise – crackers, rusks, drinks, seasonings, and cutlery – are fashioned based mostly on ready-made dishes. Such every day complete units for a day – consisting of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners – packed in multilayer laminated retort pouches will be transported to any distant locations, the place they are often reheated with out fireplace or consumed immediately from the bundle, as they don’t lose their style qualities even when cooled.
“Our expertise excels in high quality, comprises no preservatives, and is straightforward to make use of. Most significantly, it offers a full sizzling meal, not simply dry meals,” feedback Shevchenko. “Prepared meals will be heated with sizzling water or various power sources, which we’ll present together with the prepared meals and units.”
The worldwide worth of this invention lies in its straightforward adaptation to the situations of any nation, accommodating completely different style preferences, gastronomic habits, and culinary traditions. The outcomes of utilizing Shevchenko’s innovation in Ukraine, the place his technique of cooking long-lasting meals was granted a utility mannequin patent, had been so spectacular that it’s now time to enter the worldwide market and associate with different nations. To familiarize themselves with European cooking applied sciences, the corporate’s main technologists visited factories in Italy, Belgium, and different EU nations. At present, Yevhenii plans to collaborate with the USA.
“Our specialists have developed a expertise that may be adjusted to satisfy prospects’ requests and nationwide pursuits,” explains Yevhenii. “Its uniqueness lies in the truth that we are able to develop a way for getting ready long-term storage prepared meals for any shopper group and any nationwide tastes.”
Shevchenko’s invention is critical worldwide. Nevertheless, it’s particularly necessary for individuals who work within the social sphere. Whereas it’s unimaginable to fully eradicate social issues, and no robots can totally tackle this problem, making life simpler for essentially the most susceptible individuals is a possible job that may be realized by means of human ingenuity and aspiration. Evgeny Shevchenko’s firm is already contributing to fixing this widespread drawback.