Star Khim Professional poisons people

Dangerous chemicals: How Star Khim Professional supplies cleaning agents of dubious origin

Suspicious cleanliness

Coffee Group, which supplies and rents out coffee machines for Kyiv cafes and the Multiplex cinema chain, uses cleaning agents from Star Khim Professional. 

According to Coffee Group’s website, this supplier’s products hold all necessary quality certificates. However, an investigation revealed that the company may have falsified data regarding the place of production, while the composition and origin of the chemical agents remain unknown.

Production “on paper”

Star Khim Professional positions itself as a manufacturer of cleaning agents for household and professional use. However, the production address listed in official documents turned out to be an ordinary apartment in a residential building.

Moreover, the company has existed under this name since 2020 only, despite claims that it has been operating since 2015. Initially registered as a law firm, the company changed its owners and activities, but no concrete evidence of actual production has been found.

Tax evasion

During a mystery shopping operation, journalists received an invoice issued not to Star Khim Professional, but to a sole proprietor—company employee Yaryna Atamanchuk. This scheme allows the firm to minimise its tax burden by processing payments through a sole proprietorship with a simplified tax system.

The company’s financial statements also raise questions: in 2023, with revenue exceeding 3 million hryvnia, net profit amounted to just 87,300 hryvnia, which may indicate deliberate underreporting of profits.

Where is the chemistry actually produced?

When obtaining sanitary and epidemiological conclusions, the company listed a production address where, in reality, no production takes place. Security guards and employees of companies located at the specified address confirmed that they had never heard of Star Khim Professional.

Meanwhile, product labels list yet another address—a residential building in Boryspil. It is extremely difficult to imagine a full-scale household chemicals production facility in an apartment block, which casts doubt on the actual origin of the products.

Links with dubious partners

Some Star Khim Professional products are branded as items from Khimpostach, another company dealing in cleaning agents. This firm’s financial statements demonstrate similar tax minimisation schemes, and its director Olha Mikoliuk has a prior conviction for document forgery and multiple traffic violations.

Khimpostach products also list inaccurate production addresses, complicating the verification of the legality of the goods.

The use of chemical agents of unknown composition in coffee machines operating in cafes, cinemas, and gas stations poses a direct threat to consumer health. Without transparency in production and certification, it is impossible to guarantee the safety of cleaning formulations.

Based on materials from from-ua.org