Four Ukrainian sugar plants to remain Idle in 2025/26 season

Four Ukrainian sugar plants will not operate in the 2025/26 season. Kapitanivka Sugar Plant, owned by Serhiy Tarasov’s I&U Group, and the Krasyliv Sugar Plant of A'SPIK GROUP will remain idle, along with two plants of Andriy Zasukha’s Agrofirma Svitanok — Chervonskyi Tsukrovyk and the Salyvonkiv Sugar Plant in Kyiv region, which are shutting down for a second consecutive year.

A'SPIK GROUP’s commercial director, Vasyl Kovbel, confirmed that the Krasyliv plant is not participating this season. He explained that the group’s other facilities have sufficient capacity to process the available sugar beet volumes, making it unnecessary to launch the Krasyliv site in Khmelnytskyi region. The company typically activates the plant only when larger processing volumes are required. Given labour shortages in the sector, leaving the plant idle is considered a rational decision.

According to Oleksandra Mykhailenko, marketing director and co-founder of the Sugar Exchange, this downtime will not affect the Ukrainian sugar market: “Last season, the Krasyliv plant was operational, but with very low volumes. For example, we hardly noticed it at all — we only shipped one or two truckloads during the entire period, while in some months we ship up to 7,000 tonnes,” she said.

Kapitanivka Sugar Plant’s management did not comment on the reasons behind its shutdown. The plant has a nominal annual capacity of 30,000–35,000 tonnes of sugar, though it produced around 20,000 tonnes last season — a third less than usual. Industry representatives note that management had already considered downtime in the 2025/26 season due to unfavorable sugar price trends.

Agrofirma Svitanok has also confirmed that it is not processing sugar beet this season or the previous one. Company head Oleh Tsapliienko said the reason is the lack of price stability in sugar production.