The LavkaLavka brand has passed to new owners

The LavkaLavka brand, under which farm produce stores developed, has a new owner. The brand was registered by a structure associated with the food distributor Nelt-Retail, which is developing an online store with cheeses, sausages and ready-made food under this name. A well-known brand can help the project, but the market for farm products has become extremely competitive, experts warn.

Biomex LLC, owned by Lithuanian citizen Eduardas Levinas, registered the trademark “LavkaLavka” on September 1 and submitted an application to register the LavkaLavka brand, as follows from the data of Rospatent and the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. An online store of dairy products, sausages and prepared foods is already operating under this name. The site belongs to Nelt-Retail LLC, which distributes dairy products from Lithuanian Svalya, German Meggle, etc., and also produces dairy products in the Kaluga region. Nelt-Retail is owned by Kirill Sychev, who owned a stake in Biomex. And Mr. Levinas owns the trademarks Nelt, Schonfeld, Boticello, under which Nelt-Retail products are produced. The company did not provide a comment.

In 2009–2018, an online platform for selling farm products, a chain of shops and restaurants under the LavkaLavka brand was developed by Boris Akimov and his partners. At its peak in 2017, LavkaLavka united seven stores, mainly in Moscow, but in 2018 the company faced financial problems, closed most of its locations and received numerous lawsuits from contractors and suppliers, Forbes wrote. The remaining three stores were transferred to co-owners Dmitry Nemirovsky and Pavel Grinshpun, who relaunched the project under the Vlavke brand, which now unites two points. Boris Akimov did not answer Kommersant, and the representative of Vlavka said that they have nothing to do with the LavkaLavka brand.

The new online store LavkaLavka, as stated on the site’s website, also brings together local producers and farmers. Among the suppliers are “Cheese Life”, KMK “Nadezhdinsky”, “Cheese Province”. Dairy and meat products under the LavkaLavka brand are also sold on Ozon, in the stores of the Tvoy Dom and Selgros chains.

The trademark “LavkaLavka Support a local farmer,” according to Rospatent, is still owned by LavkaLavka LLC, whose main owners are Boris Akimov, Dmitry Nemirovsky and Alexander Mikhailov. The validity period of the right to the mark has been extended until 2031, although the LavkaLavka company itself has been in the process of liquidation since July 2023. General Director of Online Patent Alina Akinshina notes that the trademark registered by Biomex overlaps with “LavkaLavka Support a local farmer” only for the 35th class of goods and services (advertising, business management, etc.), and the two brands have several types of services are different. The trademark of the LavkaLavka company of Boris Akimov and partners may also be canceled due to the termination of the activities of the copyright holder, they add to Online Patent.

The owner of the Kaufman brand agency, Stanislav Kaufman, says that the use of the well-known, albeit slightly forgotten, trademark “LavkaLavka” by the new owners will only help in the development of the online store. Moreover, the expert adds, the brand did not spoil its reputation when used, and new buyers of the site will easily remember the name.

But now the competition in the market in which LavkaLavka operated has increased significantly, and the new owners can no longer count on their previous success, notes General Director of Infoline-Analytics Mikhail Burmistrov. Online and in retail, he said, there are strong players with a wide range of fresh farm products, including, for example, VkusVill, Delikateska, Kalina-Malina. And it is more profitable for farmers to sell shelf-stable products on marketplaces, the expert adds.

According to Rosselkhozbank estimates, by the end of 2023, the turnover of the Russian online food sales market will exceed 700 billion rubles, of which 50 billion rubles. can place orders for farm products.

Polina Gritsenko