EDO-KIN Group: enjoying Asia

“I used to be tennis players and travelled a lot for tournaments. That’s when we saw how Americans went about running a business in the food industry and we thought we could do something similar back home in Slovakia,” says Michal Sramko, co-founder of EDI-KIN Group, a company that runs a sushi business.

“We wanted to combine high quality with fair price and at the same time adapt Asian food to local tastes – not focussing too much on the traditional approach, but rather combining it a bit with Slovak gastro-preferences,” he adds. Today, the company runs eight restaurants across the country, as well as a delivery service and a lunchbox offer. “We’re number one in Slovakia.”

But it hasn’t always been plain sailing. When the pandemic struck, the company had just opened three new restaurants as part of an expansion strategy. “It cost more than EUR 300,000 to open a new restaurant and we had to close those restaurants immediately. You can imagine how difficult it was for us…”

Dealing with the pandemic fallout became the top priority, as the company started to focus more on take-out, delivery and the lunchbox option. “We had already made contact with Yeme, a high-end supermarket chain, and offered to do sushi lunchboxes for them. They were positive and we threw our weight behind it. And we also transformed some of the restaurants into take-out stores.”

But to make ends meet and to fuel this transition, Michal and his co-founder Karol Galik turned to SZRB for a loan backed by the EIF under the European Guarantee Fund. “We needed a loan to save the business. It’s very difficult to get finance in the gastro sector from a bank, because they consider it high risk. But it worked and I’m proud to say that we didn’t fire anyone. We helped them all keep their jobs - even the waiters that we didn’t need. That was our small win. We made quick adaptations and that’s what saved us.”

Today, the business has its own factory where it produces its sushi boxes, and the restaurants are doing very well. “Sushi is very popular here and our lunchboxes are a big hit. We prepare them every day, always fresh, always high quality, guaranteed,” Michal explains.

Looking back at the difficult times during the pandemic, it’s difficult not to relate to his tennis career when he says that “the mentality of winning and losing is something you learn from sport. That’s why we keep sport very much part of our families even today.” Turning the tables on the pandemic can only confirm that.