How a volunteer team from Baranivka, Zhytomyr region, invented a frontline dish on the go and created their own culinary brand for the frontline. 

When the guys on the front line say they carry a “hot mug” in their boots, it’s not a figurative comparison. This is a real packaged borsch, soup or porridge made by hand from dried vegetables in the village of Zarichchia. It is here, in the family of Halia and Serhii Shrol, that volunteer Liudmyla Bilotska manages one of the “swarms” of the “Shaleni bdzhilky” project, a tireless team that packs, dries, packages and sends thousands of meals to the military.

“We figured out how to make the food as light, nutritious and cheap as possible. The idea is simple: we dry, mix and pack everything so that it only needs to be poured with boiling water. It is very convenient for the boys to take with them. They even say: “We put them in our boots – it’s lighter and more nourishing!”,” says Liudmyla.

The packaging itself is an almost continuous conveyor belt: one part of the team cuts the onions, the other packs the vegetable sets, and then drying and hermetic packaging. The food is sent not only to the soldiers from the Baranivka community, but also all over Ukraine. When they call from the front line and ask: “We need that hot mug with the blue film from Baranivka,” it is the highest appreciation of their work.

Liudmyla and her family’s volunteering started back in 2014 with the first trench candles. Over time, they added herbal teas, dry soup mixes, and oatmeal kits. Everything is made from whatever is available: local vegetables, from volunteers – cereals, dryers, packaging. “Sometimes, says Liudmyla, we joke that we will open our own brand. But for now, our brand is a box in a blue film that always reaches where it is expected.”