"The requirements are ten times stricter." For whom does Lukashenko ask to expand the range of baby food?

During a tour of Bellakt OJSC products, June 2025 Topic news The global baby food market is growing. According to various estimates, by 2029 the volume could reach almost $135 billion. There are many reasons for this: from the rising birth rate in developing countries to the increasing number of working mothers looking for an alternative to breastfeeding. There is one enterprise in Belarus that produces dry mixes, as well as liquid and paste-like baby food . In this episode of the BELTA YouTube project "In Fact: Decisions of the First" we will tell you which countries the Volkovysk manufacturer feeds little consumers from, why it is impossible to produce all types of dry mixes on one line, and what product they tried to tempt the President with. 
Visiting Volkovysk in June, Belarusian President ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO outlined in detail the issues that are currently relevant for the enterprise. Communicating with the team, the HEAD of state was interested in all aspects of baby food production. He noted that this direction is very important for the country today.  

In the USSR, freebaby food was given out on prescription at so-called MILK kitchens. You could get milk , kefir ,cottage cheese , adapted milk formulas, juices, vegetable and fruit purees, cereals. The transition to the production of baby food on an industrial scale was personally supervised by Leonid Brezhnev. Three twin factories were built in the USSR. A baby food milk and canning plant was opened in Volkovysk, which supplied products not only to Belarus , but also to Moscow, Leningrad, the Baltic republics and Central Asia. Now boxes and cans with the inscription "Bellakt" are known to even more countries in the world. Answering the President's question about the supply of products abroad, the company's employees said that certification for baby food is very difficult, since this is a complex product. Now they have seven countries undergoing certification. And there will be plus 15 countries for the "tin can". In total, about 50% of the products are exported . The share of baby food is growing from year to year. Belarus feeds children from 11 countries. It is not easy to enter the markets of other countries - there are many specific requirements, even for packaging. For example, countries with a hot climate, as Ivan Lupish, Deputy DIRECTOR General for Commercial Issues at Bellakt, said, prefer tin cans.  
"For us, each country means studying the legislation, studying the needs, studying the market presence. Then we determine what products we want (to supply. - BELTA note), what products are suitable. And this is a search for a partner. Together with the partner, we carry out registration. We finalize the layouts if necessary, packaging for this region and begin deliveries," Ivan Lupish noted. 
 According to him, the main sales markets are RUSSIA , Uzbekistan , Syria, and Kazakhstan . The company is also expanding deliveries to Southeast Asia and the Arab world. For the latter, there is a Halal certificate. Another direction is the African continent, in particular, active work is being carried out with Zimbabwe.
"The company passed the audit conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources of the Republic of Zimbabwe last year. We are certified. The next step was for our partner and I to test our products in laboratories in the Republic of Zimbabwe. We also received positive reports. Today, work is underway to adapt the models and supply products to the Zimbabwean market," the Deputy Director General for Commercial Issues said about the cooperation.  
 
In 2006, a presidential decree was adopted to extend the Children of Belarus program. As part of the project, assistance was also provided to the only manufacturer of baby food in the country.  

Tatyana Gorkavik, First Deputy Director General of the Volkovysk OJSC Bellakt, recalled that production was expanded in 2014 under the presidential Children of Belarus program.  
"We have launched the production of liquid and paste-like baby food. Our company is constantly developing, very dynamic. We are constantly in the process of modernization - both in terms of equipment upgrades and in terms of expanding the range," she added.

The company produces several lines of baby food: for healthy babies, preventive and therapeutic. The latter, as noted by the head of the children's and specialized nutrition department Natalia Karach, is especially important and necessary. It includes three products. 
 
"Bellakt PRE Active" - for feeding underweight and premature babies. "Bellakt AR Active" - for children suffering from regurgitation and other functional disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. And also the product "Bellakt BL Active", which is used to feed children from birth with lactase deficiency, primary and secondary. And I would like to pay special attention to our new product. This is a product under the trademark "Sam-nyam". We began developing it last year. This is a product for feeding children from one year old - therapeutic and specialized nutrition. It is used for two categories of children. The first - eat little and poorly, they are popularly called "picky eaters". And the second category of children - who have protein-energy deficiency," Natalia Karach spoke about important nuances.

She also noted that the development of the recipe is a complex and painstaking process, since scientific data, research and work are needed, it is necessary to study innovations and trends. The company created a unique department: specialized children's nutrition. Its structure includes a medical marketing sector.
 
"In this sector, we have practicing doctors, pediatricians, neonatologists. And candidates of medical sciences, associate professors. Each has their own function. But there are doctors who are directly involved in the development of a line for children's nutrition. "They study, they guide, they suggest what should be," said the head of the department of children's and specialized nutrition of the Volkovysk OJSC "Bellakt".
 General requirements for the safety of baby food in the world are approximately the same. This concerns microbiology and toxicology. But the details are different. Basically, as the chief technologist of the enterprise noted, this concerns the composition. 

"Differences can be in certain components, since different countries have different nutritional needs for children in the first year of life. For example, in the Republic of CHINA, baby food is regulated by GB standards and the content of such an acid as docosahexaenoic acid, which comes with fish oil, is twice as much as in the territory of the European Union and the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation," said chief technologist Tatyana Novikova about the nuances of production. 
There are special requirements for dairy products for baby food. At the Volkovysk enterprise - and for the components themselves. They are even stricter than those regulated by the regulations of the Eurasian Economic Union.
Tatyana Novikova said: "Only premium and extra-grade milk is used to produce these products. This is the highest grade for raw milk in terms of microbiological and toxicological indicators. In addition, the products themselves are regulated. In terms of the content of heavy metals, pesticides, and in comparison with ordinary products for ordinary people, the requirements are ten times stricter."
According to the workers, they have multi-stage control at their production - it is impossible to bring components to the enterprise that do not meet the requirements for baby food. 
The special pride of the enterprise is its team. It is impossible to hire a "ready" employee in this area. Here, everyone is "raised" for a specific production. 

One of the employees of OJSC "Bellakt", who has been creating the company's products for 40 years, told the head of state that the real pride is baby paste food, which has practically no SUGAR. And then she invited Alexander Lukashenko to try the plant's new product - chocolate sausage.

"This is our pride, no one makes it in Belarus, the taste of childhood. Our mothers used to make chocolate sausage. It is natural. This one is cut. You can try it. We make it industrially on industrial equipment," the woman said.     
"Okay, don't tempt me, I have a sweet tooth!" the President answered jokingly and moved on to serious topics. On the agenda is hydrolyzate, milk lactose. This import-substituting product can and should be produced in the country.

Chief technologist Tatyana Novikova said: "The only thing we could not do was complete hydrolyzate. But this is only because we have one production site, i.e. we have one line for the production of baby food. Both milk formulas and medicinal formulas containing milk components are dried on it. And a formula on complete hydrolyzate requires that there be no traces of milk. We cannot ensure such safety." 
Summarizing the conversation on the topic of hydrolyzate, Alexander Lukashenko clearly stated: if everything is economically calculated, then the project for the construction of a new production facility will be supported. "Whether you like it or not, any country must feed its people. Children - especially," Lukashenko emphasized.   

Later, in an interview with the project "In Fact: Decisions of the First," Tatyana Gorkavik noted that the implementation of such a project is in the plans, "the project and construction of a workshop for the production of dry baby food according to GMP standards will be, the need for construction is ripe." 

"We must take into account that this will not be built today or tomorrow. It will take years. Therefore, taking this into account, the workshop needs to be built now. It needs to be built more advanced. In accordance with GMP standards," she added.

GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) is a pharmaceutical standard that regulates all processes right down to the joining of the baseboard and floor in the workshops, not to mention the production itself. In the new workshop, it will be possible to produce not only the food itself, but also some components that are currently imported.

When the new workshop appears at the enterprise, specialists will be able to make mixtures for children suffering from severe allergies to cow's milk proteins. As well as products for babies who have undergone operations. 

In total, the enterprise processes 800 tons of milk every day. Raw materials come from four districts - Volkovysk, Zelvensky, Svislochsky and Mostovsky. 24 farms are involved.