The best-selling beer brands in hotels, restaurants and outdoor restaurants are domestic brands Ursus, Timisoreana and Bergenbier, with the first two included in the portfolio of Ursus Breweries, while the third is part of InBev Romania, according to a survey conducted by MEMRB market research firm.
The on-premise segment annually generates over 30% of total beer sales, namely 5.8m euros.
Ursus, the best-selling beer on this segment, holds a 15% share of the on-premise market, closely followed by Timisoreana, which held a 14.2% share between December 2007-February 2008, according to representatives of Ursus Breweries, which rank second on the market.
"The on-premise channel is very important, not only in terms of sales, but also in terms of the company's image and brand. (...) We have solid results on the on-premise segment and we'll make further investments, because we consider it to be the channel where brand image is best built," stated Mihai Barsan, a group mainstream and economy brand manager of Ursus Breweries, which derived turnover worth above 185m euros in 2006.
Club owners also see consumption in this type of locations as an important boost for their image.
The results Ursus posted on the on-premise segment last year are also due to the launch of the alcohol-free Ursus, distributed at first only in hotel and restaurant networks, and of the new 0.33-litre Twist-Office packaging.
Thus, in H1 2007, Ursus reported an above 31% increase compared with the results posted two years before. In 2007, Timisoreana saw the sales volume advance by 41.8% from 2006, four times faster than the growth of the beer market, after it launched the brand in PET packaging, and promotional campaigns associated with football.
However, the best-known brand associated with promotional football campaigns is Bergenbier, sponsor of the national team, and third in terms of sales on the on-premise segment. According to InBev Romania, the producer of Bergenbier, the brand annually accounts for half of volumes and the value of the company's sales and therefore half of marketing investments are targeted towards this.
In 2007, according to InBev representatives, the volume of Bergenbier sales increased by 15% from 2006, which means that in 2007 Bergenbier reached a sales volume of above 1.9 million hectolitres.
Though the leader of the domestic beer market is not among the top three best-selling beer brands on the on-premise segment, Heineken Romania is the best-represented company in this ranking. At the other end of the scale, the producer with the fewest beer brands present in the top ten best-selling beers on the Romanian on-premise market is URBB.
The domestic beer market exceeded the 1bn-euro mark last year, and reached a volume of 19.4 million hectolitres.
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