Unilever South Central Europe and Orkla Foods Romania, the main players on the domestic margarine market, put at almost 50m euros, say positioning on niche segments can generate further growth despite the 2% decline in the volume of margarine sales last year.
The two main rivals have already entered the market with such brands, Unilever through Becel and Orkla with Wiesana d'Olive.
"Margarine is a mature market, on which consumption is stable, particularly on the market of margarine for sandwiches. Instead, on the segment of cooking margarine consumption is rising," stated the representatives of Unilever South Central Europe (USCE), a company coordinating from Bucharest the group's operations in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Moldova and Kosovo.
According to Nielsen research firm, while the percentage of flavourless margarine sales dropped by 1.4% in value last year on the entire market, to 88%, sales of sour cream flavoured margarine doubled, and those of butter-based margarine reached over 5% of the market, from around 4% a year ago.
Last year, margarine sales reached over 26 million kilograms in retail, down 2% from 2007, and 175.1m RON (47.5m euros), up 12% year-on-year, according to the Nielsen Company.
According to the same survey, the best-selling margarine brand domestically in the past two years is Delma. "Our margarine production rose in 2008, and sales continued to increase, both in volume and value," stated Unilever representatives, without revealing the value of sales on this segment.
While Unilever produces margarine only under its own labels and just for retail, Orkla Foods Romania also produces industrial margarine, sold as a raw material for other food producers, as well as under the private labels of supermarket and hypermarket chains present domestically.
Both the representatives of Orkla and USCE maintain margarine sales hold a significant weight in Orkla's turnover and in Unilever's sales of food products. However, neither of them has disclosed exact figures. Moreover, both producers are quoting different market surveys.
Orkla Foods Romania reached turnover worth more than 95.9m RON (28.7m euros) in 2007, according to the Finance Ministry website. USCE, with 163m-euro turnover in 2007 in Romania, targets further growth this year.
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