Natural chocolate «SoYKa» - Projects

Yulia Savynska

The most useful thing during training on the SEED 2.0 project was communication with mentors and entrepreneurs, lectures on Sustainable Development Goals, marketing, and project management. This helped me ‘polish’ the vision of my business.

Natural chocolate «SoYKa»

Yuliia Savynska, founder of the first professional pastry shop with her own workshop called Sava.Cakes in Kramatorsk (Donetsk Oblast), discovered her passion for creating sweets after her daughter was born with allergies to various products. For her daughter, who never liked sweets, Yuliia started baking her first pastries and cakes, which eventually grew into a full-fledged business.

Like many entrepreneurs in Ukraine, on February 24, 2022, Julia was forced to close her business and move with her family to the Zakarpattia region. In the city of Khust, she quickly found a job in a pastry shop. At the same time, she underwent business management training and began providing consultations to those who also wanted to open their own pastry business.

Yuliia came to the SEED 2.0 program with a new project – the production of natural chocolate made from quality cocoa beans without the addition of refined sugar.

Currently, Yuliia’s family is helping her with the work. Her husband prepares chocolate and designs packaging, while her daughter conducts tastings and puts stickers on the packages. Yuliia’s chocolate is currently available in four coffee shops or can be ordered by mail anywhere in Ukraine.

“The most useful thing during training on the SEED 2.0 project was communication with mentors and entrepreneurs, lectures on Sustainable Development Goals, marketing, and project management. This helped me ‘polish’ the vision of my business,” notes Yuliia.

One of the most time-consuming processes in Yuliia’s production is currently manually crushing and separating cocoa beans from husks. The SEED grant will help automate these processes and allow her more time for creative experiments.