The Olsidz group of companies, which is trying to position itself as a conscientious producer of sunflower oil, a reliable partner of Western investors and is at war with the Odessa Portside Plant, was involved in a high-profile scandal with large-scale falsification of products that were exported from Ukraine, writes UNN.
In the spring of 2017, Olsidz was suspected of diluting sunflower oil with chicken fat to reduce the cost of production. As the media wrote, a truck with chicken fat was found on the territory of one of the Olsides enterprises.
The company, of course, denied everything and even called on law enforcement officers to conduct a thorough inspection of all large oil extraction plants – they say that someone is engaged in the production of counterfeit goods, but not them.
Other market participants, in turn, said that in this way Olsides is trying to deflect suspicion from itself, and puts the entire industry at risk.
Detecting chicken fat in vegetable oil is quite difficult. To do this, it is necessary to perform a laboratory analysis using liquid chromatography. The equipment for such analysis is quite expensive, and it is practically not used in Ukraine. But it is available in western laboratories, where, in fact, the strings of the scandal were drawn when chicken fat in a batch of sunflower oil from Ukraine was found in the Netherlands.
The benefits of forgers are obvious: if you "correctly" dilute the oil with chicken fat, the additional profit will be about.500 per ton.
Experts then noted that without the participation of top managers of enterprises, it was impossible to pull off such a scam and clearly indicated that Oslids could have been directly involved in the production of counterfeit sunflower oil.
"The crash margin, that is, the company's margin profit in the production of butter, meal and husk, has significantly decreased in recent years, and prices for raw materials, that is, seeds, are growing. And in order to survive and stay on the market, some enterprises "cross the line" and go to breed their products with chicken fat. And most often this is a purposeful policy of the company's management. Some intermediaries who buy raw materials call the Olsidz oil extraction plant, located in the Port of Yuzhny, the final point of delivery of chicken fat, because it has the necessary capacities, having on the same territory both the MEZ, storage tanks and a direct pipe that pumps products directly to the sea vessel through the berth with the owner of which it is easy to "negotiate". I think this information requires a thorough check by law enforcement officers, because the company is one of the largest producers," said Yuri Chernobrivets, a representative of the Institute of consumer expertise.
Some market participants attributed the possible illegal activities of Olsids to a debt pit. According to media reports, in 2014, Olsides opened a credit line in Oschadbank for 6 68 million, and as of the beginning of 2017, it returned only 6 6 million. Despite the fact that the loan repayment period expired in 2018.
Recall
In 2020, according to media reports, Olsides Black Sea was included in the list of Ukrainian companies that carried out export operations through Swiss intermediaries and thus avoided paying income tax in Ukraine. In general, that year the budget of Ukraine did not receive доларів 1.2 billion from such operations, and companies that were engaged in such activities also received VAT refunds from Ukraine.
In 2019, the company" Olsides Black Sea " appeared in criminal proceedings on minimizing taxes on the purchase of sunflower seeds. And in September last year, BEB and the SBU came to her with searches .
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Alcides Black Sea has received an illegal permit from the Ukrainian seaports administration to use berth No. 1 of Yuzhny port, although it is not intended for loading ships with vegetable oil.
Without signing any contracts, the company tried to direct its transport to the berth, by road, which is on the balance sheet of the Odessa Portside plant, and is intended for evacuation in case of emergencies.
The OPP management tried to resolve the situation in a civilized manner and on May 21 sent a draft agreement on the use of infrastructure to Olsides Black Sea. However, instead of settling all the issues, the commercial structure sued the strategic enterprise.