Export – one hundred percent!

To say that Avira Limited is export-oriented – as we usually describe our exporters – is like saying nothing. It sells all its products in Europe.

Now it is a natural furniture board, mostly made of oak, and solid wood furniture, according to the company’s owner Ran Drori. And they started in 2001, when the company was founded, with the export of oak boards. But a few years later, they abandoned such exports, economically convinced that selling wood raw materials is not the best way to do business. It is more profitable to sell wood processing products, value-added goods. So, first, we organized the production of solid wood furniture panels, and not so long ago we established our own furniture production.

Ran Drori from Israel. Before coming to Ukraine, he worked in the field of woodworking and furniture. The local company had business relationships with Ukrainian timber suppliers, both private and state-owned, so when the enterprising Drori decided to supply Ukrainian timber as possible and profitable, it became clear that the company should be Ukrainian. And when it became a furniture factory, he considered it short-sighted to stay outside our branch association.

The furniture industry on which Avira Limited focuses has a unique component: the manufacture of, one might even say, artefact furniture from wood that has aged for many years. Again – oak. Furniture items – mostly benches and tables – from the aged oak are in demand abroad. High price for connoisseurs of such products – a secondary factor, the main thing – uniqueness, exclusivity.

– Wood is known to be a renewable natural resource, but obsolete – no. There are fewer and fewer objects that can be a source of its supply. So such furniture, we can say, is temporary, hopeless?

“That’s what it would be like,” Ran disagrees, ” if it was mass production.” Aged wood is used to make single products, so do not think that its reserves in Ukraine will be depleted in a couple of years.

In order to constantly replenish its stocks, our company has a division. So to speak, search engine. Throughout Ukraine, he searches for old buildings intended for demolition, buys them from owners, dismantles, selecting oak elements that may be suitable for the production of special furniture and elements for interior decoration.

Tables, chairs and other items for sitting from solid wood – products familiar to our time, but cabinet furniture – this is from the furniture practice, so to speak, the pre-period period. Such furniture, ie made of solid wood, is now considered unprofitable for mass production, primarily because it is expensive and heavy. And yet there are fans, including apologists for the 100% environmental friendliness of their homes, who need such furniture. Avira Limited focuses on them, offering Europe not only tables and chairs made of solid wood, but also cabinets, chests of drawers and more.

– Let’s go back to the oak furniture board, which is the basis of your exports. Undoubtedly, the shield from other popular breeds of furniture would not go unnoticed. For example, from ash. Do you plan to expand the range in this way and thus diversify your market offers?

– We really see such a need. Now we are interested in more birch bark, the same ash and pine. Let’s make test batches and see how the market reacts. If you show interest, which will be our economic benefit, we will put these types of furniture panels on the stream. Moreover, technologically the production of furniture panels from oak, ash and birch bark is almost no different. Unlike pine.

– And why do you ignore the Ukrainian market?

– “Ignore” is not the word. We do not ignore it, but we should work more economically for export. And in the price dimension, and in the volume of deliveries, if we talk about the furniture board.