Kateryna Kuzmina, Head of Procurement and Sustainable Development at AB InBev Efes Ukraine, spoke about the role of procurement in logistics

23-24 November, Kyiv hosted the largest logistics exhibition in Ukraine, dedicated to the All-Ukrainian Logistics Day. The event brought together experts from the logistics industry experts, including representatives of international and regional companies, 3PL operators, freight forwarding companies, customs brokers, suppliers of IT solutions and logistics equipment, etc.

More than 1000 participants from various industries who work daily to solve the most important tasks and optimize the supply chain, gathered to share their experience and find the best solutions.

One of the of the speakers at the conference was Ekaterina Kuzmina, Head of Procurement and Sustainable Development of Procurement and Sustainable Development at AB InBev Efes Ukraine. In her report, she spoke about the development of communication and cooperation between the company and logistics partners and highlighted the principles that guide AB InBev Efes Ukraine in during such partnerships.

At the At the beginning of her speech, Kateryna Kuzmina shared with the participants the goals and challenges that, in her opinion, are facing the brewing business today. It is about sustainable development of the company, building long-term partnerships, finding new ways and solutions to to optimize business costs.

Having talked about the components of successful procurement, she added her insights on how businesses can achieve profit.

In her report, Kateryna Kuzmina also mentioned how AB InBev Efes Ukraine in the context of logistics. In February and March 2022, and with the subsequent de-occupation of the company's home regions of the company, logistics faced strategic challenges, aimed at restoring business through the import of imported goods.

"At first, it was international transportation, and later it was international transportation, and only then local production and local transportation production and local transportation. When Chernihiv Brewery reopened in the fall of 2022. Chernihiv Brewery reopened, the number of shipments increased significantly, because our transportation partners believed in us and helped us rebuild our distribution," she she recalled.

Therefore, in her opinion, successful cooperation in the logistics business is based on human relations. That is why when choosing a supplier of logistics services, the company relies on certain qualities and criteria that should be to be a supplier-partner of AB InBev Efes Ukraine. 

"У "In our procurement, we are guided by the following principles: transparency, openness, respect for new and trusted suppliers, and confidentiality. We care not only about how to choose suppliers, but also about how they treat us. treat us. It is important for us to have reliable partners and to be reliable partners," she emphasized.

У In today's complex realities, it is mutual trust, mutual assistance and confidence in AB InBev Efes Ukraine as a representative of sustainable business has become a guarantee of of cooperation with companies in the logistics sector. Thanks to a long-term partnership in the the company was able to successfully overcome the challenges that it faced on the way on the way to restoring the breweries and business.

In addition to In addition, an important policy for AB InBev Efes Ukraine is to ensure high quality of services and safety of drivers of companies providing logistics services. Cargo is transported and stored by people, so it is extremely important for the company to ensure ensuring safe working conditions for them. Our company makes every effort to ensure that each driver had proper working conditions and always had the necessary individual protection, such as safety shoes and signal vests.

Nowadays, the work of logistics companies companies is very important for the whole country. It was the carriers who were the first to to provide products to the de-occupied territories. In February 2022, European companies stopped working in Ukraine altogether, there were no air travels, and sea traffic almost stopped. Only our people and vehicles remained.

Humanitarian aid is mostly based on humanitarian aid is mostly based on road transport logistics. A striking example is the company's Water for Life initiative, which brought 5 million cans of clean drinking water were imported to Ukraine. This allowed us to to partially meet the needs of Ukrainian communities without access to drinking water in Donetsk, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Kherson. The water was also used to support the work of hospitals in Kyiv and Mykolaiv, educational institutions in Chernihiv region, resilience centers and reception centers for IDPs in the cities of Zaporizhzhia, Pokrovsk, Chernihiv, Khmelnytskyi, and others.

"Water was provided for evacuation trains, sent to hospitals, we were one of the first to provide clean water of the first to provide clean drinking water to the residents of Kherson region after the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant in June 2023. So, indeed, in today's conditions it is difficult to to overestimate the role of logistics for businesses, consumers and communities," she emphasized. she emphasized.