Today, on 1 December, more than two dozen veteran-owned businesses had the opportunity to present their products to Lviv residents and visitors at Rynok Square in Lviv.
This is the fourth time the fair has been held in the city, which gives everyone the opportunity to support the cause of veterans and their families. This was reported by the Lviv City Council.
Mykola and Mariana came to the fair for the first time and brought unique organic teas called Travka. One of the co-owners of the business is veteran Anton Sosinskyi, who returned from Poland to Ukraine from the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion and volunteered to join the Ukrainian Armed Forces. At the front, he sustained a mine-blast injury to his legs and was transferred to a military unit, and later demobilised.
“This is a unique brand of tea from Lutsk. We collect all the herbs and berries in the Volyn and Rivne regions, and we control all the processes ourselves, because we collect and dry them – we have our own drying facilities – and grind them, pack them, and even glue all the labels by hand.
We have supplied our herbs to tea companies in Germany, Belgium, and Poland, and having gained experience, we decided to try our hand at it. We have developed our own line of 10 types of tea, and right now we have a new product – an exclusive tea with pieces of fly agaric. We were the first to certify it in Ukraine and the world. Because microdosing of fly agaric is very popular, many people now use fly agaric capsules to support the nervous system, but as far as I know, we are the first to produce tea.
In fact, this year we started to develop our brand, and since the beginning of summer we have been in Lviv for the first time at the Organic Producers’ Fair. And today we are at the veteran fair for the first time, and this is a great opportunity to present ourselves, tell people about us and ask for their feedback, maybe there are recommendations. If people like it, then we are on the right track,” says Mariana, a representative of the organic tea brand Travka.
Today’s fair features manufacturers of baked goods and various sweets, meat products, teas and jams, jerky, souvenirs, and much more. It was also the first time that a veteran business from Volyn, founded by IDPs from Donetsk region, took part in the fair: they make their own cheeses and sausages.
The first veterans’ fair, held in early October, was attended by 22 participants. Veteran businesses not only from Lviv, but also from Kyiv, Irpin, Chernihiv and Ivano-Frankivsk came to the second fair. In total, three such fairs have already been held in the city, and the fourth took place today.
As a reminder, Lviv City Council actively supports businesses run by veterans and their families. The city has already issued more than 90 certificates of voucher support (up to UAH 300,000 each) for the development of veteran businesses.
The businesses of veterans and their families in Lviv are also marked with special stickers “Support a Veteran’s Business” to attract the attention of consumers and residents and to promote businesses run by families of defenders. The city also created a map of veteran-owned businesses in Lviv and the region.