The project's goal is to support small and medium-sized businesses in Ukrainian cities and villages. To create opportunities for entrepreneurs, scale businesses, update equipment, and launch new services. This is not only about economic growth but also about strengthening communities, creating jobs, and improving people's quality of life.
"Systematic support for small businesses is an important part of our activities. After all, entrepreneurship is always about people: those who keep the economy afloat every day, create jobs, and fill the budgets of their communities. Through our grant programs, we have already supported 548 entrepreneurs. And we are not stopping, so together with the Kurator brand, we are launching a competition for the HoReCa sector for the second time," said Oleksandr Pakholyuk, director of the MHP-Hromadi Charitable Foundation.
As a result, experts identified two winners in each category, who received grants ranging from UAH 250,000 to UAH 500,000. The total budget of the competition was UAH 2.5 million.
In total, 51 applications were received for this year's competition: 24 in the Street & Casual Food category and 27 in the Middle Segment category.
Participants went through several selection stages. The first took place on August 7, when the expert commission selected 16 semi-finalists. Each of them received TM "KURATOR" products and prepared an author's dish for a video presentation in their own establishment.
At the end of August, the competition commission evaluated the video presentations and the final culinary presentation, which took place at the MHP Culinary Center. According to the competition rules, two winners were to be selected in each category.
However, the level of the presented ideas turned out to be so high that the commission decided to support more participants. As a result, five entrepreneurs received grants ranging from UAH 250,000 to UAH 500,000:
- 3 - in the Street & Casual Food category,
- 2 - in the Middle Segment category.
Winners of the UAH 500,000 LOT:
• Gastronomic space MYR (Kropyvnytskyi, Oleksandr Syrov, Andriy Chmanov)
• Summer terrace of the restaurant (Kovtuny village, Poltava region, Oksana Metlushenko)
• Family game cafe Galaxy Game Club & Café (Ladyzhyn, Tetiana Khudchenko)
Winners of the UAH 250,000 LOT:
• Pan Babun bakes bread (Vinnytsia, Liliia Kolodieieva)
• Scaling of the family cafe Impasto (Yahotyn, Kyiv region, Alina Koval)
The expert commission that determined the winners included representatives of the restaurant business, marketing, and social projects:
· Illia Demkovskyi — brand chef of the MHP Culinary Center, over 20 years of experience;
· Yurii Hrytsai — veteran and chef, specialist in veteran initiatives;
· Nataliia Shadchnieva — expert in B2B marketing and restaurant business development (15+ years in FMCG and HoReCa);
· Anzhelika Voitiuk — brand marketing manager, MHP HoReCa Development Center;
· Oleksii Povtoreiko — owner and brand chef of the "NAZHYVO" chain of establishments;
· Volodymyr Panchenko — head of the national projects department of the MHP-Hromadi Charitable Foundation;
· Sanella Babovych — brand chef of Fiji group restaurants, chef of Prynada Ukrainian cafe;
· Artem Raduchych — head of Doner Market developments, culinary expert of TV projects.
The competition winners will be able to use the grants to modernize equipment, open new directions, and develop their own establishments. Within the project, participants also took part in consulting webinars, which provided entrepreneurs with additional opportunities for learning and experience exchange.
This year's competition "Do Your Own with Horeca Masters" became a logical continuation of the initiative launched in 2024. Last year, within the project, 10 entrepreneurs from various regions of Ukraine were supported, and each winner received up to UAH 100,000 for the development of their own business.