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The study’s relevance stems from the growing role of organized retail as the dominant sales channel for everyday goods and, at the same time, the limited integration of small producers into network supply chains. The purpose of the article is to identify and systematize the entry barriers faced by small producers of fast-moving consumer goods when accessing organized retail, based on an analysis of the structural characteristics of the entrepreneurial environment, financial and economic performance indicators of business entities, and the institutional conditions governing interactions with retail chains. The methodological framework of the study includes structural-logical and comparative analysis, statistical processing of official data, generalization and systematization techniques, and elements of institutional and structural approaches. The research is based on statistical data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine for the period 2010–2024, survey results from small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular the Ukrainian Business Index (UBI), and analytical materials on the functioning of organized retail. The findings reveal that the numerical dominance of small businesses within the overall business structure, particularly in the food industry, is not matched by a proportional economic contribution to total sales volumes. It is substantiated that the operational and logistical requirements imposed by retail chains–especially those related to the regularity and centralization of deliveries–intensify these limitations by transforming the production and infrastructural characteristics of small producers into sources of operational risk. Furthermore, the study identifies that regulatory and contractual interaction mechanisms with organized retail, including the asymmetric allocation of contractual liability and the risk of delisting, function as institutional barriers that reproduce structural inequality within the sector. The practical significance of the results lies in their potential to substantiate approaches to mitigating entry barriers for small producers into organized retail by developing cooperative models, alternative distribution formats, and institutional instruments to support entrepreneurship.