“Cheese Kingdom”, once Ukraine’s largest specialist cheese chain, is set to cease trading by the end of 2026 – security risks were cited as the reason, as co-owner Lyubov Nikolayeva explained on 16 October.

The chain, known in Ukrainian as “Syrne Korolivstvo”, stocks more than 100 varieties of European cheese and, at the height of its success in 2021, had 84 branches. This figure fell to 48 by June 2025 and to 32 by October, as reported by Forbes Ukraine. Nikolayeva explained that the company could no longer guarantee the safety of customers and staff, and that the war was hampering the expansion of the branch network as well as recruitment efforts.

Syrne Korolivstvo Ukraine LLC’s turnover fell by 27.5 per cent in 2025 to UAH27.9m (approx. €500,000), and its net loss rose from 860,000 UAH in 2024 to 8.3 million UAH. In June 2025, the chain employed around 250 staff nationwide.

A Russian attack on 23 June 2025 destroyed the head office in Kyiv, along with its servers, databases and equipment. By that point, the company had already been operating at a loss for around a year. The war was not the only factor putting pressure on the business: supermarkets have expanded their range of European cheeses, and the market share of Ukrainian artisanal cheese producers is growing.