A comeback via the court

Trade Granite Invest, a company from Kyiv, has come back to the market of army food supplies and become one of the biggest contractors for the Ministry of Defence. Despite being disqualified for a year following an NGL.media investigation into non-quality canned food supplies, Trade Granite Invest has secured new contracts, valued at a total of UAH 3.3 billion.

NGL.media found out how it has become possible.

Following the results of the competition for supplying food products to servicemen in the second half of 2025, which lasted from May till July, SE, the State Logistics Operator (SLO), signed agreements with ten companies. Trade Granite Invest LLC has been found among the leaders in terms of the number and cost of contracts, although even half a year ago, it didn’t have the right to participate in any competition due to sanctions for the provision of non-quality food.

“A ban for a year, but not quite”

In October 2024, NGL.media published an investigation “A Smelly Story” in which we proved that Trade Granite Invest had provided almost 11 thousand cans of pork meat to the servicemen. Then, the Ministry of Defence conducted its own laboratory tests using the remains of the batch, taken from the combat units, and these tests confirmed that the cans hadn’t corresponded to the profile DSTU standards.

The internal audit in the SLO revealed that Trade Granite Invest LLC supplied these cans using invalid quality certificates. As a result, the agreement with Trade Granite Invest, worth over UAH 2 billion, was terminated, and the company was subjected to fines and urgent economic sanctions. For instance, the company was banned from any participation in the SLO competitions for 12 months, till October 16, 2025.

“It means that if, in the course of the validity period of this decision, the supplier applies to competitions, then its proposal will be declined at the stage of checking the qualifications of the participants. It will be disqualified,” Dmytro Bihunets, the director of risk management and compliance for SE SLO, explained in the comments for NGL.media.

At the same time, while there is a procedure for applying the restrictive sanctions against unfair contractors, a state enterprise has a procedure for an early release from them.

Trade Granite Invest LLC requested that the ban on participating in competitions be lifted six months after it was imposed. The company met all the required conditions, including paying a fine of over UAH 1.4 million, so the SLO lifted the ban earlier.

“During the period of the validity of the restrictive measure, there were competitions for the procurement of food in the first half of 2025, and Trade Granite Invest was disqualified in all [competitions] accordingly. So, they didn’t supply anything to us for half a year,” Dmytro Bihunets added.

Winners can’t be judged, but that’s not certain

From May to July, the SLO was procuring food for the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the second half of 2025. The estimated total cost of the competition was UAH 23.9 billion. According to the results of the competitions, the SLO signed agreements with ten companies, and Trade Granite Invest LLC managed to be among the leaders in terms of the number and cost of contracts.

The company has won the right to sign three agreements for the total cost of UAH 3.3 billion, two of which were obtained via court.

Trade Granite Invest LLC was declared a winner in two out of several lots of the competition, announced at the end of May, with a total cost of over UAH 1.4 billion.

The company obtained one of these lots without any problem, having proposed the lowest price among 11 participants – UAH 1.18 billion. The agreement with the SLO was signed on June 4.

As for the victory on the second lot, Trade Granite Invest just gnawed it out. Eleven companies were competing for this lot as well. The lowest price was proposed by Okhtyrka Miasoprodukt LLC, and the system chose it as a winner. Yet, on June 12, the SLO declined this proposal, because the Sixth Court of Appeal in Kyiv ruled that the decision about this victory had been illegal.

Using the same scenario, the proposal of the next winner, a novice in the competitions for army food, Mitford LLC, was declined too. After that, the system declared Trade Granite Invest LLC a winner, the proposal of which exceeded the previous ones by UAH 20 million. On July 2, the SLO signed the agreement with the company, worth UAH 326.7 million.

Who is suing whom and what for

It is noteworthy that it was not Trade Granite Invest who disputed the victory of Okhtyrka Miasoprodukt but another known supplier of army food – Meat Prom. In court, Meat Prom demanded that the decision regarding the victory of Okhtyrka Miasoprodukt be cancelled, alleging that the company had concealed warehouse addresses and failed to attach the exploitation permit for the Kyiv region warehouse to the competition documents. The district court agreed with the plaintiff’s claims.

Okhtyrka Miasoprodukt and the SLO attempted to appeal the ruling of the first-instance court to the Sixth Court of Appeal in Kyiv, but their efforts were unsuccessful. The court of appeal, presided over by Judge Olena Hanechko, ruled that the “arguments in the complaints of the defendant’s appeal and the third party were not proven” and didn’t satisfy them.

As for the victory of the next participant, Mitform LLC, Trade Granite Invest disputed it in court on its own. In the notice of its claim, the company argued that the competition proposal of Mitform LLC hadn’t contained the acts of transfer and acceptance of the rented trucks, exploitation permits for warehouses, and that its certificate from the state register of legal entities had not been valid. The Kyiv district administrative court satisfied the requirements of Trade Granite Invest LLC in full. The SLO also failed to appeal this ruling in the Sixth Court of Appeal in Kyiv.

The servicemen of Brigade 102 are cooking in their field kitchen. Zaporizhzhia region, September 2023 (a photo by Diana Yatsiv)

How can one receive a contract with the highest price

In court, Trade Granite Invest won one more lot in other competitions, also announced in May. This strategy allowed the company to win with the proposal, the cost of which exceeded that of the three previous winners, determined by the system, by over UAH 40 million, – UAH 1.82 billion. The agreement with the SLO was signed on June 24.

Only four participants competed for this lot. The lowest price was proposed by Iryna Manko, a sole entrepreneur, but the SLO declined her proposal due to the absence of some documents. The next participant with the most beneficial price was Okhtyrka Miasoprodukt, but the SLO didn’t want to sign the agreement with it because the company had already won three lots of this procurement.

“We use this instrument to diversify the risks and avoid excessive monopolisation so that half of Ukraine wouldn’t depend on one supplier,” Dmytro Bihunets explained.

As for the last winner, Mitform LLC, Trade Granite Invest LLC removed it in court as well. The company demanded that the results of the competition should be abolished because Mitform hadn’t closed the addresses of warehouses in the list of its material and technical foundation, hadn’t attached its exploitation permits to the competition documents, and had allegedly submitted an invalid certificate from the state register of legal entities. Trade Granite Invest lost in the court of the first instance but won in the court of appeal.

Dmytro Bihunets notes that defence procurement cases are ruled by simplified judicial proceedings, so the ruling of the court of appeal is final and not subject to further consideration or appeal.

So, Trade Granite Invest won in the official competition, having proposed the highest price among all four participants.

The representatives of Trade Granite Invest LLC have not responded to the requests of NGL.media for comments on this article.

It is worth reminding that the owner of this Kyiv company, founded in February 2022, is Yulia Pavlichenko, who was associated with the powerful former people’s deputy Oleksandr Granovskyi wanted in 2022 on suspicion of fraud in the Odesa port plant.

The comeback leaders

So, ten companies became the winners in the three competitions for food supplies to the army, held in May-July, with a total cost of UAH 23.9 billion. Trade Granite Invest LLC obtained one of the highest total costs of the contracts.

The winners of the competitions for food supplies to the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the second half of 2025:

The total cost of the contracts was UAH 19.9 billion, which is UAH 4 billion below the estimated price.

The author Yelyzaveta Chyp, editor Oleh Onysko, translation Nelya Plakhota, cover Viktoria Demchuk