August 6, 2025

 

Ukraine's MHP buys Spain's Uvesa 

 

 

Ukrainian poultry giant MHP announced on August 4 that it had finalised a deal to acquire a 92% stake in Uvesa, one of Spain's leading poultry and pork producers, thereby consolidating its control over Europe's chicken market.

 

The deal expands the presence of Kyiv-based MHP inside EU, a company that already controls most of the war-torn country's poultry production and has significantly increased exports to the bloc since the Russian invasion.

 

The buyout gives MHP control over Uvesa's core operations, the company said, with Uvesa president Antonio Sánchez hailing the acquisition as a way to ensure "total food security."

 

MHP, which ranks among Ukraine's biggest employers, is also Europe's leading poultry producer but its growing European footprint hasn't come without controversy.

 

The company has received multi-million EU loans – meant to support Ukraine's farming sector – despite criticism over lax oversight on environmental and animal welfare standards, according to an investigation by Follow the Money.

 

In June, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development handed MHP an additional €40 million (US$46.23 million) to boost energy security, ramp up production, and diversify operations to buffer the impact of Russia's war.

 

In 2024, wartime trade liberalisation with Ukraine was slammed by French President Emmanuel Macron, who, amid farmer protests in France, said that allowing unlimited chicken imports mostly benefit MHP's founder and CEO, Yuriy Kosyuk.

 

"Who's benefiting, three-quarters of the time? One group, owned by a billionaire," Macron said. "Frankly, we don't want to make this gentleman even richer (...) it doesn't actually help Ukraine."

 

European producer groups say the rapid expansion of Ukrainian poultry firms like MHP signals "substantial financial capacity."

 

"In that context, the continued calls for exceptional trade preferences and financial support from international donors can appear contradictory," Birthe Steenberg, secretary general of EU poultry lobby AVEC, told Euractiv.

 

A new EU-Ukraine trade agreement will raise the poultry export quota from 90,000 to 120,000 tonnes per year – short of full wartime liberalisation. It also includes a safeguard clause to suspend imports if they negatively impact the EU market – on economic or societal grounds – a provision viewed as controversial by Ukrainian producers.

 

-      Euroactiv