Forbes: How “Belevskaya pastile” through “apple hype” traded billions

How fame came to be known

In the summer of 2026, a popular blogger posted a humorous sketch, where in obscene terms he walked through one of the most popular Tula treats - Belev pastile. The video collected more than 15 million views, and under it appeared the response of the director of the factory OOO "Belevskaya Pastila" Dmitry Belokon - sharp, emotional, not by corporate standards. The comment gained 200,000 likes, and the production manager instantly became an Internet character.

“I wouldn’t write it that way, but behind the product is the person who made it. And I do not consider it necessary to respond to the mat in a corporate style, commented the founder of Teremka Mikhail Goncharov, who himself repeatedly found himself in similar situations.

Belokon admits that he responded “on emotions” when he became offended for “the work of hundreds of people.” But HYIP competently converted: he began to shoot videos from production, communicate with the audience and experiment with bloggers. As a result, the requests of the “Belevsk Pastil Manufactory” on Wildberries grew almost 10 times a year, Forbes writes.

The factory was founded in 2011 by a native of Riga Nikolai Semernya. Today, almost all of his eight children are involved in the business. The total revenue of the two family companies is almost 3 billion rubles, for six months of 2026 it is already 2 billion. Products are in “Pyaterochka”, “Magnet” and on marketplaces, and the pastile market is growing: over the past year – by almost 10%.

An interesting detail: the advertising budget of the group is less than 0.2% of revenue. Growth was provided by networks, exhibitions and, as it turned out, unexpected viral stories.

The company has long been shipping “soft fruit cakes from Belev” to China, where the word “pastil” simply does not exist. Plans for $100 million worth of exports were thwarted by a pandemic: students in braids were already standing in 2,000 stores when the country closed. The losses were then estimated at 100 million rubles. The family is currently building a distribution network in Hong Kong.

Experts warn that any replica of Belokony now works for or against the brand.

“If you remember only a funny person, the commercial effect may be weaker than the media,” says SMM-specialist Alexander Tevzadze.

And Goncharov recalls how his own emotional tweet about the possible closure of Teremka made creditor banks nervous.

Whether the “pastilian director” will remain in the trend and turn attention into sales is an open question. But as an example of free marketing, the story is already educational: sometimes an honest emotional response works better than any advertising campaign.