Carpathian Taste Public Union celebrates its 5th anniversary

When you love natural tasty products, you want to eat them every day. You cannot buy such products in every supermarket or a small local store near your house. Yet, we are witnessing progress in this department – organic eco-products from the Carpathians are becoming more accessible.  Among those making it possible is the Carpathian Taste Public Union.

This year marks the 5th anniversary since the Public Union has been established.

We do have reasons to feel proud, as despite the initial apprehensiveness of our Swiss partners during early stages of the project, Carpathian Taste PU is getting stronger and stronger with each year.

“We understand that it is not always easy. But we already have almost 30 members from Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian region. We are becoming better and are doing everything for the natural tasty eco-products of Ukrainian farmers to find their way onto the tables of Ukrainian consumers. “By the way, people abroad have already had a chance to appreciate the high quality of our products”, says Pavlo Tüzes, President of Carpathian Taste Public Union.

Besides, the assortment of Carpathian Taste is constantly expanding – it includes sausages, dairy, cheeses, organic oils, canned products, drinks etc. It is all because any farmer who makes quality products can join the union. Obviously, before you can join the Carpathian Taste, your facilities undergo inspection and certification since Carpathian Taste is responsible for the quality of products that bear its name.

The inspector checks production facilities, product naturalness and Carpathian region provenance. If a producer passes the inspection successfully, they get the green light and become members of the PU once they have paid their membership fees.

The development of Taste of the Ukrainian Carpathians trademark is part of Swiss-Ukrainian project “Organic Market Development in Ukraine in 2012-2018” funded by the Swiss Confederation through its State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and implemented by Swiss Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) in cooperation with sector stakeholders and the Ministry of Agricultural Policy and Food of Ukraine.  

“I am pleased to see how much has been done over the past 5 years. We are progressing at a fast pace, the number of members is growing and the assortment is getting bigger each year. The quality of products is also very high. We are proud of our achievements and we are moving forward steadily”, says Tobias Eisenring, Carpathian Taste PU board member and FiBL representative summarizing the work of team.

Lviv city council and regional council promise to continue supporting the work of Carpathian Taste PU and the producers. In particular, they are extending support to organic producers who have business development plans.

“Carpathian Taste PU is a union of 30 producers who love what they do, who are passionate about their business and who do everything to make Ukraine known all over the world.  Local organic craft food is very popular in the world and we often forget that we have our own products that are natural, homegrown and made according to traditional recipes of our ancestors. We should love what is ours, promote it and take care of our health by consuming the food that is natural and ecological”, says Halyna Batyus, PR manager of Carpathian Taste PU.

As part of anniversary festivities and review, we discussed promotion of organic products. In particular, the fact that a new tasting attraction had been launched in Lviv, at its open-air museum Shevchenkivskyi Hai. You can book the service for yourself, friends or guests of the city.

An hour and half flies by like a minute when you sit by the warm stove in the chimneyless hut, treating yourself to tasty food and listening to interesting stories of the hospitable host Ivan Salomatin. Carpathian Taste PU has plans to open similar tasting spots in each region.

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