“To Change the System, We Must Unite”: How Kormotech Builds Partnerships for the Animals’ Sake

Since 2003, Kormotech has been producing high-quality food for cats and dogs. Being a leader in sales volumes on the Ukrainian market, it also exports its products to more than 50 countries. The manufacturer’s brands include Optimeal, Delickcious, Club 4 Paws, Gav!, Miau!, and My Love. However, Kormotech not only cares about healthy nutrition for four-legged companions, but also has a social mission — to change the attitude to animals in Eastern Europe.

Strategy implementation relies, in particular, on high-quality partnerships. Alina Smyishliak-Boroda, Director of Reputation Management and CSR at Kormotech, and Iryna Lozova, Head of Social Projects at the company, told us about partnerships, flagship charitable initiatives, project communication, and promotion of shared values in foreign markets.

Who does Kormotech partner with?

Alina:

In the non-profit sector, we distinguish between partnerships with independent organizations and those that are infrastructurally linked to us through exclusive cooperation mechanisms. We do not yet have a family charitable foundation within the Kormotech group of companies and hence interact with teams helping us systematize our charitable activities. For example, we have signed a memorandum on the administration of our Save Pets of Ukraine initiative with the U-Hearts Ukraine NGO, which is independent of Kormotech.

When it comes to what we see as a rational business component of social activities, for me it’s about growing the market. Currently, 80% of pet parents feed their animals factory-made food. When we started our business, however, market penetration was only 20%.

Iryna:

We also classify our partners by categories. For example, we have expert collaborations where we interact with organizations that provide professional assistance and specialize in certain areas. I would mention here our project with the Voices of Children Charitable Foundation, which provides psychosocial assistance to families with children facing war. Separately, there are operational partners engaged in our animal protection projects. For Kormotech as a company that manufactures pet food and sets standards for quality nutrition, collaboration with organizations that can provide scalable assistance to cats and dogs is vital. This is not just about humanitarian aid — this is also about educational initiatives and projects aimed at fostering a culture of animal rescue, care, and welfare.

As for our partners in the animal welfare sector, we differentiate them by  their activities. We are now moving away from assisting those who only feed animals, for this will not solve the global problem of stray cats and dogs. We currently focus on organizations that are involved in adoption, sterilization, vaccination, and bringing these standards to the masses. While in 2022 we responded to the ubiquitous crisis on a large scale, we now distinguish between the frontline regions, the center, and the west. We study everyone operating further from the front line particularly carefully to direct resources to organizations providing quality assistance. We give preference to those engaged in rescuing evacuated animals and their adoption, because the idea of “feeding everyone” actually increases the number of direct “beneficiaries” — cats and dogs — on the streets.

On the Save Pets of Ukraine flagship initiative

Alina:

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Kormotech focused on three areas of work: ensuring rapid export development, supplying the Ukrainian market, and helping war-affected animals. More than 40 of our employees took care of the latter, and that’s how the Save Pets of Ukraine initiative came about. These were proactive and conscientious people whose work functions the company was forced to temporarily pause due to uncertainty. Some of them felt the new project was so natural to them that they are still working on the initiative.

Currently, Save Pets of Ukraine is an independent project with its own “code” that works in synergy with us. They have their own staff. We are now relaunching the initiative and updating its strategy and branding, as today’s challenges differ from those in 2022, and we need to work not so much on disaster relief as on strengthening our long-term impact.

Under the terms of the memorandum between our organizations, Kormotech covers the organization’s requests. Hence, their team can invest all their resources — fundraising and human ones — in project activities. They help drive change and communicate effectively with shelters.

Does Kormotech only have partnerships in the field of animal protection?

Alina:

A postulate says that all charitable and social projects should be organically linked to your core business. We are primarily associated with animal welfare, and people often think that we can only work in this area. However, I believe that we need to look broader and that charity or impact projects are always a response to society’s demands. Today, these demands are more comprehensive than ever, since the civic society has transferred many of its expectations previously placed on the state to businesses. In any case, you can’t and shouldn’t exist exclusively in your own bubble. As a company, we are now looking to help the military and civilians, animals and people. For example, there is a foundation with which we collaborate on helping families with children who have experienced war.

In fact, we even engage in the cultural sphere, because by supporting artistic initiatives, we can “reach” a much larger number of people — such products and collaborations have a much longer life cycle. In particular, we have supported the film anthology War Through the Eyes of Animals by Ukrainian producer Oleg Kokhan, which was presented at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in June this year. It was created to draw global attention to the suffering of animals during the war and to the ecocide in Ukraine perpetrated by the aggressor country. A star-studded cast of directors and actors joined the project, including two-time Oscar-winning Hollywood actor Sean Penn, known for his support of Ukraine. Does this align with our core activity? For me, it does, for it tells the story of war through the language of animals, appealing not so much to reason as to emotions, and that’s pure cultural diplomacy. When we support a work of art, we need to explain to part of our audience that thinks quite linearly why and for what purpose we have joined such a project.

What criteria are used to select partners and who is given preference?

Alina:

We always try to answer honestly why we need a particular collaboration, as objectively, our resources are not enough for everyone, no matter how much we would like them to be. We have to activate a kind of “filter” that allows us to help and work effectively. We check whether a potential partner is media-savvy, whether they have any negative cases, whether they are systemic, and what their reputation is. In other words, effectiveness and a good reputation determine our response to cooperation.

Furthermore, for example, when the military approaches us, we do not look for media coverage but help everyone at once in a practical way, specifically addressing a concrete need. It may be a minor case, and we deliberately do not communicate it, but it is important for us to get involved because defenders do not have minor needs — any help is important.

We agree to participate in projects whose idea is timely and has the potential to live on and help even as the collaboration ends. For example, we have been approached several times with proposals to partner on documentaries related in one way or another to animals and war. All of them were potentially interesting to us, but a number of factors influence the decision to cooperate: aligning values, opportunities and placements for the integration of the company and product brands, additional factors, and even, not least important, the budget period and process.

We have also just implemented a system to filter ideas through our internal committee. Various interesting partners approach us, and we would really like to take on all of the projects. This is a constant tiring race that disperses resources — both human and material. Therefore, we now collect requests for partnerships and ideas and conduct an “internal tender.” We compare the potential of incoming initiatives and make our choice. I think it is important that communicators do this, since CSR drives both business and reputation. We immediately see the reputational potential of collaborations. Unfortunately, we can’t cooperate with everyone, as we, like any company, have to allocate limited resources.

On reformatting the change approach

Iryna:

When it comes to the current number of stray animals, we understand perfectly well that we can’t help everyone on our own. So, in order for us to change the system, we need to unite. A good example here is our Save Pets of Ukraine initiative, which collects and distributes aid in the form of food, medicine, and accessories from various manufacturers, not just Kormotech. We may compete in business processes, but when it comes to helping animals, we have a super partnership. If we all don’t unite our efforts, we will simply “drain” our budgets on feeding for decades, “wasting” small amounts of aid for a large number of stray animals, with the latter only increasing anyway.

Alina:

I think the transition happened quite organically back in 2012, when we decided to launch the Take Your Dog to Work campaign to promote pet-friendly offices. Then, the war started, and we had to rescue animals in the east of Ukraine, while with the full-scale invasion, the Save Pets of Ukraine initiative appeared. Here, a philanthropic motive was added — to help as many animals suffering from the war as possible. Every person has a desire to do good — it’s a way to feel a little bit like “God.” Still, that’s a selfish motive. Great deeds should lead to great changes in people’s consciousness, changing the attitude toward animals and improving habits in care, feeding, and treatment.

At some point, we simply realized that we wouldn’t be able to feed everyone, and even if we could, that wouldn’t solve the problem of the increasing number of stray animals. So, we needed another solution. We always try to look at the root cause, search for gaps in the system, and direct 80% of our efforts to a bottleneck. In animal protection, this bottleneck is the ability of institutions (shelters, CSOs, and sterilization missions) to systemically and effectively provide the right services, i.e., not to feed animals in shelters for years, multiplying their numbers, but to find families for them. And we have to teach others how to do this right.

How incoming partnership requests are processed

Iryna:

I always look at how much a letter is idea-focused and targeted. That is, I have to immediately understand who, what, where, to whom, and how much it costs. If I see that the request is just some kind of mass mailing, I automatically send a template response and don’t go into details and don’t look for an organization that could help. It’s important that before writing to someone, a person at least consider what kind of company it is, what it does, and what its values are.

If I see value and humanity in the request, I actively communicate: I try to understand who I’m dealing with and hear the request itself. When I see that it may be really interesting to us, even if it doesn’t fully relate to our CSR strategy, I involve Alina in the briefing. Also, if the request is relevant to one of our brands, I write to them. I briefly describe the essence of the proposal and why it is important for us to join the project or event.

On perfect partnership requests

Alina:

It’s great when people come to you with a concrete idea for a joint project and have clear arguments as to why it is needed, when they show how it will benefit them and us, have a presentation, an action plan, and defined KPIs. And it’s great when they offer a project with a positive sum, where 1+1=3. That’s cool. But when they just ask for money and say they’ll figure out where to spend it themselves, that’s not okay, as well as template letters, which are quite a strange thing. The request form can be decisive when an organization lacks weight in the information field, but if it already has a certain established reputation, proposal content is important.

Iryna:

I like it when they send a presentation: I then always want to get more involved and help. It’s just that when people prepare so thoroughly to send a request, they definitely believe in their idea. And when the presentation is as personalized as possible, created specifically for the company or at least includes our name, that’s great. It seems to be quite a simple thing, but it creates a better attitude toward those asking for help.

On equality in cooperation

Iryna:

Helping with food for cats and dogs is the first step to cooperation, the easiest way to start a meaningful dialogue and establish partnerships. Currently, the Save Pets of Ukraine initiative has 12 foster shelters with which our manager cooperates almost daily. We not only cover practically all of the food needs, but also help resolve legal issues and provide advice on how to cooperate with the community. We post profiles of animals from these shelters on a platform for finding families for them — Look 4 Paws (a social initiative of our premium brand Club 4 Paws). In one case, a team we work with is already able to find homes for almost 100% of their cats and dogs.

We have also seen that at first, shelters don’t understand why we “interfere” with their work, but then they begin to see that our involvement enables them to do many other important and useful things. Working with us is not a story of “we’ve delivered food for animals and forgot about it,” that’s not the case. We treat our beneficiaries in the field of animal protection as full-fledged partners, and they treat us the same way. Though it used to be strange for them, now they are ready to cooperate. If we say that they need to register a legal entity for us to deliver food for cats and dogs, they go and do it. Thus, business can be not only a partner but also a driver of improved standards.

On partnerships that had to be terminated

Iryna:

We had 15 shelters under our patronage, with 12 left. As we began our cooperation, we shot promotional videos for them to tell about themselves and start rehoming animals. We communicated honestly: The shelters reported to us, and we reported to them, so that they understood that this was the norm. Once every six months, we summarized the amount of food for cats and dogs and the amount of money we had transferred, because humanitarian aid is not always counted — much food in the warehouse is good, while little is bad. On the other hand, this is important for us, too, as we can thus see how much we have invested and what feedback we have received.

At some point, we realized that several shelters didn’t comply with our agreements and failed to rehome animals. We noticed that for a few months, the indicator remained at zero. At first, we gently inquired about the possible reasons: Had something happened, were there not enough employees or volunteers, did they need some kind of help? It is important for us to be helpful. We understand that various factors can affect people and decided to give them three more months to try to change the situation. That is, this is not a story where we simply apologized and terminated our cooperation. We honestly explained what was wrong and said that if they weren’t ready to cooperate in the format set by the sponsorship program and fulfill the adoption KPIs, which is the ultimate goal, we would be forced to exclude them from the program.

One shelter reacted as loyally as possible, since they simply weren’t ready to work in this format. Another shelter, however, claimed that we did not want to help their animals. They tried to show that we were “bad guys” by publishing screenshots of our correspondence. Anyway, people wrote in the comments: “But you yourselves didn’t fulfill the terms and conditions.”

When Kormotech is looking for partners

Alina:

We launched Ukraine’s first journalism contest on animal protection, which was initially called “A Pet-Friendly Country.” It was then that we realized we needed to somehow convey this information to journalists, get them involved, promote the idea of the contest, and encourage them to submit their articles. It turned out that we actually didn’t know how the representatives of, for example, regional media, say, from the Kherson region, get such news. As publishing paid press releases would hardly work, we needed to find a partner. I hear about the Internews Ukraine organization, which enhances the development of Ukrainian journalism, and wrote to them. I didn’t receive a response from their office email and asked my acquaintances if anyone knew anyone there, thus getting Natalia Rudenko’s contact information. I wrote to her and the organization responded immediately — they became our information partner. We’ve had a wonderful collaboration for two years now. This is the case where a professional partner and personalized communication yielded a positive result: This year, the Spivprostir journalism contest will be held for the third time.

This is a moment of inner excitement, because you always come to a strong expert partner as a supplicant who even can’t always clearly formulate the “technical specifications.” We have never been refused, and we have always received a tremendous impact from such collaborations.

On whether one approach is suitable for different countries

Alina:

The values that underlie our approach are definitely exportable — relying on basic morality, they are universal. Still, we understand that each market has its own specifics, and we study it and research the context before offering anything. For example, since there are practically no stray animals in the Baltic countries, it is hardly worth going to them with a mass sterilization program. In Romania, there is a huge demand for animal hotels, while shelters are extremely neglected. Incidentally, this country has the largest number of stray dogs in Europe. In Estonia, problems with pet-friendly culture are greater than in Ukraine, and Lithuanian shelters are sometimes in worse condition than ours.

Therefore, we need to understand what kind of project we can offer to our partners in other countries. It’s great if we’re talking about their culture of treating animals being better developed, but if we’re talking about a worse situation, we will educate and bring our partners up to the necessary level of awareness.

On cross-sector cooperation

Iryna:

There was a large project called “Paws in Safety,” which provided 7,000 free vaccinations and microchipping for animals. Since it was a grant from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), a local operator was needed to implement it, and the Save Pets of Ukraine initiative took on this role. The project involved the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, as well as 21 clinics in 14 regions of Ukraine, which vaccinated and microchipped animals. Internally displaced persons, military families, and socially vulnerable groups, mainly elderly people, were eligible to receive services for their animals under the grant. I can’t say it was easy, because we had to build communication from scratch, but it was a very powerful partnership boost for everyone.

On the first All-Ukrainian Animal Protection Forum

Iryna:

We’ve recently held the “Zoosvidomi” (lit. “pet-conscious people”) forum to show that this public movement in the field of animal protection is efficient and ready to promote its rights on an equal footing with others. We have also matured to the point where we have powerful ambassadors able and willing to promote the principles of a humane country. This is very important, too, because, under our current legislation, an animal is a thing, and the owner has the right to do whatever they want with it: sell it, transfer it, or give it away.

It is crucial to build a strong animal protection sector because, in fact, it voices our company values. If we say that we want to develop proper attitude to animals in Eastern Europe, we can use Ukraine as an example to show other countries where the company is represented what this humane country is all about. If we are able do this within our country at war, Moldova and Romania will be able to do that a priori. In general, high-quality cross-sector cooperation is needed, as the forum brought together everyone who cares about a humane country: representatives of the animal welfare sector and business, heads of various organizations and foundations, people of culture and international human rights defenders, representatives of the police, the prosecutor’s office, etc.

On non-public partnerships

Alina:

It’s okay for us to be an “unnamed” partner in a project, but this doesn’t mean we don’t need to clearly understand the goal — why we enter into cooperation. We distinguish between our contributions: investments in a certain impact, as a desire to influence something, and charity for philanthropic reasons. For example, we support Plast in Lviv with regular monthly contributions. Do Plast’s activities completely align with our focus? No, they don’t, but we support this regional organization because it is about our community, our “small homeland.” We are a conscious corporate citizen and support the community. And although Plast has an excellent system of communication with beneficiaries and donors, it is not essential for us that they mention us in every post or text.

When we embark on a large communication project, we build a targeted reputation. We invest both to benefit the society and to achieve business goals.

On redirecting requests for aid

Alina:

When we receive irrelevant requests for professional assistance, we can redirect them to those expert in the area. What we definitely avoid doing is advising shelters to bring animals to. We can offer an algorithm for finding a home for a pet and solving this issue independently.

Iryna:

We had an exception to the rule that Alina mentioned, though, but we simply had no alternative then. It was a hopeless situation: Our employees contacted my department to say there were sick cats and dogs in a village near our factory that needed to be taken away and treated. They couldn’t be brought to the factory, for it is prohibited by sanitary regulations. So, we contacted the “Home of Rescued Animals” and asked them to take the pets, but we covered the transportation, treatment, and maintenance costs.

How to maintain communication with partners

Iryna:

Each collaboration has its own communication system. For instance, in shelter patronage, there is a project manager and a manager, and they communicate with everyone involved. They have a shared chat and communicate constantly. Every month, shelters have to submit reports on the number of animals that have been adopted and those that are still there. We don’t assess the increase in the volume of humanitarian aid provided but analyze the success of the program based on adoption rates. The program has been running for almost two years — so, we have something to compare it with.

Another thing we assess in constant communication is how requests are changing. That is, if shelters used to ask for only material assistance, now they need consultations, for example. And that also speaks volumes.

Read on how Kormotech’s CSR is organized