For a few months, Tereshchenko and his fellow Cossacks lived near the town of Beauvais, where the fertile soil of the Bree valley produced beets just like those of his Ukrainian homeland.

At this time, a blockade by the United Kingdom hindered the delivery of sugarcane from the Antilles to France, so Napoleon began producing sugar from beets as a workaround.

The Tereshchenkos utilized trade credits, offering a good price to product manufacturers who came to sell at the local fair in exchange for deferred payment until the return of the convoy.

Tereshchenko funded the construction of a vocational school, male and female gymnasiums, a pedagogical institute, a bank, the free hospital of St. Euphrosyne, an orphanage, and Three Anastasias Cathedral.

Emperor Alexander II of Russia issued a royal decree on 12 May, 1870, by which, for special services and charitable activities, Tereshchenko and all his offspring of the male line were made hereditary nobility of the Russian Empire.