Brandmine Weekly Edition 24 · Tuesday, October 20, 2026 Hiding in plain sight. Not for long. |
When a food business has to shrink, the shop is the part it can give up. The kitchen is not. This week stays in Tatarstan, the Russian republic around Kazan, with two food companies that shrank their public face and kept the part that makes the product. Edition 22 asked who owns the factories there; this week asks why they are the part worth keeping. Bahetle, a Kazan supermarket chain, closed its last Moscow store in April 2026. By its own account, it still makes 12,500 tonnes of ready food a year. Tubetey, a Tatar pastry brand, went from 17 points, franchises included, in November 2018 to six by June 2019, kept its own kitchen and rebuilt with investor partners. In both, the shops were what gave way and the kitchen was what lasted. * * * Randal Eastman · Penang |
This Week's Lead Bahetle 🇷🇺 Russia · Brand In February 2015 Bahetle's debt payments doubled, from ₽400 million (~$5M USD) to ₽800 million (~$9M USD) a year. The Kazan food chain announced about 600 job cuts, a tenth of its staff, before a single store had paid its rent. It did not fix the problem on the shop floor. It leaned on something it had built eleven years earlier. Muslima Latypova, who founded Bahetle, learned the trade running Soviet canteens in Kazan. In August 1998 she was in a hotel in Poland, holding the money for her first supermarket's equipment, when the rouble fell fivefold against the dollar. She could keep the cash or spend it at the worst rate. She spent it, and the store opened that December. In 2004 Bahetle opened its own frozen-food workshops, with a rail siding, and began making much of the Tatar food on its counters. From then on it was a kitchen with shops attached. The shops went one by one. In 2017 the whole chain was offered for sale at a valuation of ₽10 billion (~$100M USD). The sale did not complete as offered. Two stores closed in 2023, another in 2025, and the last Moscow store, on Tverskaya Street, on 30 April 2026, when its lease ended. "There was no time to cry; we understood the company had to be pulled out, it must not die… Every closed store is endless heartache for me," Latypova told Business Online in May 2026. What she kept was the production. A family factory in Zelenodolsk, west of Kazan, opened its first phase in November 2023: 30 tonnes a day, with more than ₽600 million (~$7M USD) invested. It sits in two family companies, her daughter's and her grandson's, not in Bahetle itself. Together with the older kitchens it makes 12,500 tonnes of ready food a year, by the company's own account, and about 3,500 people work for the company, roughly half of them cooks, by Latypova's count. Bahetle's revenue for 2024 was ₽4.63 billion (~$54M USD), from filed accounts, below the 2016 peak that KazanFirst reported. It is a smaller company than it was. But a chain that only rented shelf space would have had little to sell when the debt came due. Bahetle still had the kitchen. 12,500 tonnes — the ready food Bahetle's kitchens and a family-owned factory make in a year, by the company's own account |
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What It Means The kitchen behind the shopBahetle had made much of its own food since 2004, so when its debt payments doubled it could close stores and still be a producer. A chain that only rents shelf space is left with leases to sell. Keeping the kitchen kept the company going, and the open question is how much it can earn from a smaller base. The franchise lessonTubetey let franchisees open outlets under its name, and the standard did not travel: by June 2019 it was down from 17 points, franchises included, to six. It rebuilt with investor partners who co-own restaurants that are supplied from its own kitchen. Growth that depends on other people keeping your standard is only as strong as the weakest operator. Its restaurant count today is a range, about 11 to 17, because two published counts do not reconcile, so the open question is how far the slower model has already brought it back. Who owns the kitchenLatypova owns 100% of the operating company, OOO Bahetle-1, according to registry data. The Zelenodolsk factory sits outside it: her daughter registered Fabrika Bahetle in 2020 and her grandson founded Fabrika Bahetle-1 in 2023, both in public records. So part of the kitchen that carried Bahetle through belongs to family companies, not to the company itself. For a buyer or partner, the thing to check is who owns the factory, not the shop. |
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This Week's Takeaway These two food businesses lost shops and kept going; the kitchen is what lasted. Ask who owns the kitchen, not how many shops there are. |
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Also This Week 🇷🇺 Russia · Founder Muslima Latypova In August 1998 she had the money for her first store's equipment when the rouble fell fivefold. She bought it anyway and opened that December. |
🇷🇺 Russia · Brand Tubetey Tubetey had 17 points, franchises included, in 2018 and six a year later. It rebuilt in Kazan with about ten investor partners as co-owners. |
🇷🇺 Russia · Founder Sultan Safin He left a Saudi Aramco engineering post in 2015 to sell Tatar pastry in Kazan. A decade later he still runs the business he co-founded. |
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By the Numbers | ● | 12,500 tonnes — the ready food Bahetle makes in a year, from its own kitchens and a family factory, by the company's own account |
| ● | ₽4.63 billion (~$54M USD) — Bahetle's revenue for 2024, from filed accounts. Dollar figures throughout use one current rate, ₽85.96 to $1. |
| ● | 17 to 6 — Tubetey's points, franchises included, between November 2018 and June 2019, after quality slipped at some franchisees |
| ● | About 10 — the investor partners who now co-own Tubetey's restaurants, all supplied from its own kitchen |
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From the Discovery Desk Bahetle and Tubetey are two of the Tatarstan food brands we have profiled. Our free Russia market page lists the others, and what each one is built on. Explore Russia → |
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