Romania: Romania’s small brewers lose sales on the back of loan difficulties and competition with the internationals

The small beer producers, affiliated to the Employers' Association of Independent Brewers in Romania (PSIPBR), recorded a 23% drop in sales in the first nine months, from 1.176 million hectolitres to 909,400 hectolitres, Curierul National published on October, 6.

"The volume of beer delivered by independent producers decreased in the first nine months as a result of the difficulty for these companies to obtain loans with favourable interest from banks, due to the expansion of the hypermarket chains, to the detriment of small traders, and to the dumping policy applied by the multinationals of the brewing industry in the economy segment", said Vifor Verşescu, the General Manager of the PSIPBR.

According to Verşescu, the multinationals compete with the small producers in the economy price segment, and their eventual disappearance from the market would allow the big companies to increase "low-cost brand" prices.

"They want the disappearance of small producers to increase low-cost beer prices," he said.

Another argument given by Verşescu for the considerable decrease in sales volume was the competition from the big companies through more efficient production. Thus, the small producers have higher costs with fixed costs, while the multinationals, which have concentrated their activity in several factories where they have expanded capacity, have lower fixed costs related to the volume of beer produced.

According to PSIPBR data, the market share of small producers in the total volume of beer was 4.4% in the first nine months of this year, the entire market being valued at 20.6 million hectolitres. The estimates of the employers' association for the whole year set Romania's beer market to no more than 21.5 million hectolitres, up about 9% as compared to last year.

The most important companies affiliated to the PSIPBR are Bermas Suceava, Bere Azuga, Albrau Oneşti, Bere şi Malţ Robema from Roşiorii de Vede, Martens Galaţi, Bere Trei Stejari from Sibiu.

08 October, 2008