We figured it out for three: how cartels appear in the baby food market
The Primorsky Krai Prosecutor's Office has approved an indictment against the CEO of Food Magistral. This company, together with the organizations Magistral Invest and Flagship Plus, were recognized as participants in a cartel in the catering market in kindergartens in 2021. Three more defendants in the case are hiding from the investigation. In the meantime, the cartel's member companies are still working in social nutrition. Izvestia investigated how often this market is illegally divided among its participants.
How the food market was divided in Vladivostok
The case of cartel conspiracy in the kindergarten food market was brought to court five years after the competition. In 2021, Magistral Invest, Flagship Plus and Food Magistral in Vladivostok, as the FAS administration for the Primorsky Territory found out, divided all tenders among themselves before conducting trade procedures on a territorial basis and concluded contracts at the initial maximum price, effectively abandoning competition with each other.
More than 30 municipal contracts were distributed between the three companies. Flagship Plus received 16 contracts worth 896 million rubles, Magistral Invest and Food Magistral received 15 more contracts worth 855 million rubles.
The Primorsky FAS admitted that the law "On Competition" had been violated. The companies then tried to challenge the decision of the antimonopoly authorities, but the courts of all instances supported the position of the department. In September 2022, the company was fined 65.6 million rubles.
In 2023, the regional Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia again discovered signs of a cartel in the catering market in kindergartens in Vladivostok, this time its participants were Svetoch LLC, which received contracts for 1 billion rubles, Magistral Invest LLC and Food Magistral LLC — 520 million rubles each.
Flagship Plus LLC and Svetoch LLC have one founder, Ilya Yashkov. Alexey Bezuglov is the founder of both Magistral Invest LLC and Food Magistral LLC.
In January 2026, the deputy prosecutor of Primorsky Krai, Stepan Tyukavkin, approved a criminal indictment against the CEO of the Food Magistral company. She ended up in the dock under paragraphs "a" and "b" of part 2 of Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The defendants are three more people who escaped from the investigation. The criminal cases against them have been separated into separate proceedings. They are wanted.
The name of the accused has not been publicly announced, but Lilia Alekseeva has been the CEO of Food Magistral since 2015, according to Rusprofile. She was the head of Magistral Invest until June 2021. Natalia Gorobets replaced her there. The head of Flagship Plus is Alexey Nekrasov, the head of Svetoch is Ilya Yashkov.
Meanwhile, the companies have not left the market. In January, Magistral Invest again won an auction for catering for children, but this time in four kindergartens in Irkutsk for almost 47 million rubles.
The Federal Antimonopoly Service for the Primorsky Territory explained to Izvestia that, according to the procedure for conducting public procurement, there is no ban on the participation of persons recognized as participants in a cartel conspiracy.
Sources familiar with the market situation in Primorye noted that there were companies operating in the market that had "many faces." They portrayed competition until the moment when the FAS was able to fix the violation. After that, the companies really stayed working, but not in schools, but in other social institutions. And the suspicions of using the same illegal methods there have not been confirmed.
"At the same time, companies from Tatarstan, Mordovia, Moscow and several cities are now working in baby food in Vladivostok: this case led to the fact that nonresident companies that squeezed out local businesses drew attention to the market," the source said. — Probably, this is a plus for the market — healthy competition has begun.
The source also stressed that the local authorities, at least, were not interested in the existence of a cartel, but turned out to be a kind of hostage to the situation: being customers, officials could not but hold auctions and refuse them, leaving children without food.
The FAS press service explained to Izvestia that the social nutrition market is one of those where "signs of concluding anticompetitive agreements" are most often found.
"In 2025, violations in the social catering market were identified in 8 regions of the Russian Federation," the department said.
One of the biggest precedents in 2025 was the cartel that existed from 2022 to 2024 in the Chelyabinsk Region. Its participants were seven companies. A criminal case has been opened against them under part 2 of Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Are cartels common in baby food
Valery Alekseev, head of the Popular Front's Bureau of Investigation, called cartel arrangements in the field of social nutrition a "systemic problem."
— The People's Front has been fighting them for almost ten years, starting in 2016. During this time, dozens of cartel schemes have been identified in various regions of the country as part of public and expert monitoring. Antimonopoly cases were initiated on these materials, and criminal cases were initiated on individual episodes, and court decisions were made," the Izvestia interlocutor noted.
He stressed that the very existence of cartels in the field of baby food directly affects the quality of services. At the same time, the social nutrition market is "particularly vulnerable" — it is predictable and long-term, which makes it attractive to unscrupulous players.
Head of the Law Center.guru Alexander Evstashenkov said that in all areas of the economy in 2024, the FAS of Russia discovered cartel conspiracies in 78 regions of the country. At the same time, 85% of cartels are identified in public procurement.
"And social nutrition is one of the areas where cartel conspiracies have been identified most often, along with construction, road construction, pharmaceuticals, passenger transportation and real estate," he said.
According to Alexander Evstashenkov, only in the last two years similar schemes have been uncovered in Chelyabinsk and Kaluga.
Vladimir Chernigov, President of the Institute of Industrial Nutrition, noted that cartels in the field of social security have become less common now — it is here that the FAS has "got its hands full" over the past five years, having learned how to work with such situations.
Why do companies create cartels
Valery Alekseev noted that companies enter into cartel agreements for the sake of guaranteed profits and elimination of competition. Attempts to cover up such agreements with "business cooperation" are legally untenable. Agreements aimed at dividing the market and restricting competition are explicitly prohibited by law.
— The sustainability of such schemes is often supported by a formal approach to local procurement. At the same time, only the investigative authorities and the court can recognize someone's activities as criminal and prove the involvement of local officials in it. It is fundamentally important to continue strengthening public control using digital systems — this helps law enforcement agencies and serves as an important preventive mechanism," he stressed.
Alexander Evstashenkov emphasizes that legal business cooperation exists: consortia, subcontracting, associations, but it does not imply agreements on prices and market division.
— Cartels can be created with the consent or connivance of the authorities. The government may be a passive observer who ignores obvious signs and formally evaluates applications, or it may be an active participant. This means receiving money, adjusting technical specifications for the "right" supplier, and disqualifying competitors. During the investigation, they check the correspondence of officials, the movement of money, and the initiators of changes in documents," he explained.
Evgeny Lando, CEO of the Contract Systems law firm, notes that the reason for the appearance of cartels may be the evolution of a "local oligopoly."
— Several real suppliers, who know that new players are not expected, can come to an agreement to minimize risks and costs. It is easier for them to fix the status quo and prices than to invest in a price war that will eat up the already low margin in the social sphere. Collusion becomes for them a tool of survival in a closed system," the source explained to Izvestia.
According to him, in the field of baby food in the regions, as a rule, there is a local market with high barriers to entry. In practice, this results in a "natural oligopoly": in a particular area or city, there may be only two or three companies that are actually able to organize the purchase of high-quality products, cooking in a specialized food store, delivery of hot meals strictly on schedule, etc.
Valery Alekseev emphasizes that identifying such collusion requires serious analytical work. Persistent signs of a violation are the lack of price reduction, the repeatability of participants, and managerial affiliation.
— It has become easier to detect anomalies: due to cross—analysis, when they see a match of metadata in documents, common founders and managers, etc., - says Evgeny Lando, in turn. — But for a criminal case under Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, unlike an administrative fine by the Federal Antimonopoly Service, direct evidence is needed.: correspondence, testimony, financial schemes.
Alexander Evstashenkov notes that they also pay attention to the atypical behavior of bidders when companies, by default interested in making a profit, do not try to lower the price and do not create real competition with other bidders.
How to solve the problem
Vladimir Chernigov told Izvestia that a new law "On social nutrition" is currently being developed. An agreement has already been reached to hold a large-scale conference on this issue in St. Petersburg, and issues of protecting the market from cartel collusion can also be discussed there.
According to him, one of the ways to regulate the market is to create a register of its players.
— In addition to the formal requirements imposed on participants in social nutrition contests by the general legislation on public procurement, there should also be special, sectoral requirements. This includes certification and entry into the register of companies — first voluntary, and then mandatory," he said.
In addition, it is very important to prescribe a tariff for social meals, and not just a price formula. Currently, the markup on food in cafes, says Vladimir Chernigov, ranges from 200 to 500%, while in school meals it does not even reach 100%. When there is a tariff for food and a tariff grid for categories of employees of social care organizations, there will also be an honest price for the service, which will allow market participants to provide truly high-quality feeding in schools.
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