Croissant maker Chipita Romania, which accounts for 80% of the market, has expanded its productive capacity following a 16 million euro investment in order to maintain its leading position on the market, against expectations of a higher demand for such products.
"This investment proves our confidence in the Romanian market," Chipita International vice-president Constantinos Apostolides told Ziarul Financiar.
The company has completed a new factory equipped with three productive lines, one of which brand new. Until now, Chipita was making croissants by using two productive lines bought from Greek companies, Star Foods and Best Foods.
Apostolides did not care to provide details about the sales in Romania for this year or for 2002, either, and only said the market share was higher than 80%. "We want to protect our market," Apostolides said.
According to the Finance Ministry, the company logged approximately 22.1 million euro sales in 2001, 70% higher than in 2000.
Chipita's sales growth in Romania was largely due to the launch, at the same time as the "Pokemon" animated series, of the croissants including various surprise stickers depicting characters from that series in 2001. Pokemon aired until last spring and worked as a marketing tool for the company.
As in the case of other markets before, the Pokemon-mania came with Pokemon merchandise, such as notebooks, clothing items, games and toys and everything that might appeal to a child. The more extensive this phenomenon got, the more hard to control fakes were flooded into the market.
The company's product portfolio includes 65 or 90 gram packed croissants, sold as 7Days/Fantastic Star, Olala and Chipicao (the first two brands were bought from Star Foods in 1999) and as Mini 7 Days. The Romanian products are also exported to Hungary.
Located in Ilfov County, the factory takes up 16,000 sqm in addition to a 4,000 sqm piece of land.
The construction works carried out by the Greek C. Balafas Company began last spring, and the building opened about three weeks ago.
Albeit the company is also selling bake rolls (toast in various flavours) in Romania, it does not make them here.
"We have no intention of producing bake rolls in Romania. We have a factory in Bulgaria and because Bulgaria and Romania are part of the CEFTA region, we export from Bulgaria to Romania tax free. We are focusing on croissants," Apostolides said.
The company has invested approximately 30 million euros since entering the market in 1999, which includes the building of the new factory, according to Apostolides.
Back in 1999, it bought a productive line from another Greek snacks and chips maker, Star Foods, only to buy the croissant business of Best Foods, another Greek company two years later. Best Foods retained the snacks business. Chipita paid $5 million for the productive line from Star Foods.
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