InBev Romania, the third largest beer producer on the Romanianmarket and producer of the Bergenbier brand, will suspendoperations of its brewery in Blaj over the next six months and send110 of the around 180-200 employees of the plant on technicalunemployment. The Blaj-based plant produced over one hectolitres ofbeer last year, accounting for around 30% of the company's overallproduction, according to ZF estimates.
"The measure comes amid a decline in demand, and has beenprompted both by the economic context and by seasonal factors," sayrepresentatives of InBev Romania, a company with 173 million eurosin turnover. The malt production facility, located close to theplant, will, however, remain operational in the next sixmonths.
This is the first major factory closure to be announced by abeer producer, with the beer market amounting to 1.6 billion eurosin 2008, after beer sales fell by over 10% in the first half ofthis year, with July seeing the steepest decline in the past fewyears.
InBev Romania holds two plants on the Romanian market after inthe autumn of 2007 it transferred the production capacity of theBaia Mare seasonal facility to the company's main facility nearPloiesti.
Currently, InBev's European assets, including those in Romania,are put up for sale.
Company representatives said employees sent on technicalunemployment would receive everything they are entitled to underthe legislation and under the collective labour agreement withinthe next six months, without specifying the value of salaries.
"In order to minimise effects on the other departments, we willresort, where possible, to personnel rotation. The main argumentsin favour of this decision are avoiding redundancies, improving thesupply-demand ratio and preserving InBev's competitive position onthe market," said InBev representatives.
With InBev having secured its necessary stocks for the next fewmonths, considered off-season months in the beer industry, thistemporary closure of the Blaj plant is a means of cutting costs forthe Blaj plant, which will also allow the company to cut prices. Ifit runs short on stocks, the beer producer has the option ofimporting from InBev plants in neighbouring countries.
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