Mineral water to account for 7-8% of URBB's production

United Romanian Breweries Bereprod, producer of Tuborg and Skol beer brands, says the production of mineral water, which will be sold both on the Romanian market and abroad, will account for 7-8% of the company's production next year.

Shachar Shaine, president of United Romanian Breweries Bereprod (URBB), did not wish to provide a forecast as to next year's sales of the mineral water brand. "Now we are working in parallel at completing the factory and at creating the new brand, positioning it, designing the bottle and finding a name for it," he says.

The company's manager says that before starting the greenfield project he also considered acquiring a factory in Harghita county, but in the end decided building one from scratch would be better.

'We decided to build a greenfield project for the mineral water factory, primarily because this is what we do best. We have accumulated experience both from building the beer factory and from starting Granini production. A greenfield factory costs more, but you build it the way you want to and you no longer have to face the problems that arise in the wake of an acquisition," said the company's president, which last year posted 93 million euros in turnover from production of beer and juice.

URBB started to build the mineral water factory in Bilbor commune, Harghita county, at the end of last year, with the company's president estimating it will be operational by the end of this year.

"The mineral water market is very important to us because it balances our portfolio. Moreover, we already have a good sales and distribution system, and our policy is to use this system only for our products," Shaine explains.

The Tuborg beer producer has invested over 10 million euros in building the water factory, this being the company's second greenfield project on the Romanian market, after the beer factory in Pantelimon commune, Ilfov county. The water spring, leased out by the company from the Natural Mineral Resources Agency, has a capacity of 7 litres per second, with the new mineral water bottling facility to have a capacity of 15,000 bottles per hour.