Publicly available data show that losses deepened to RON66 million. The brewer, whose brand portfolio includes Bergenbier, Stella Artois, Beck’s, Lowenbrau and Noroc, had barely managed to return to growth last year, after having lost more than RON500 million of its business volume in 2008-2013.
The decline in the first half comes on a difficult beer market. Overall beer sales were down 9% to 7.3 million hectoliters in the first half, according to the Brewers of Romania Association citing Nielsen data.
“Bergenbier’s volumes in the first half of 2014 were significantly better than those of the overall market. The beer market was down in the first half compared with last year, according to the National Statistics Institute data and the decline was due to the difficult economy and unfavorable weather at the beginning of the year,” the officials of the company said.
Bergenbier’s last year of profit was 2008, after which it posted cumulated losses of over RON340 million in 2009-2013. Competition in the beer industry increased during those years and consumption moved to the economy segment. (EUR1=RON4.4419)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)