Fornetti Romania plans to rebrand the existent stores and to employ other 50-100 people.
Thus, the company’s management decided to rebrand its existent 600 units countrywide.
In Romania, Fornetti is leader of the pastry and pretzel market, with a 6% market share, according to market research company Euromonitor.
The company, which went insolvent at the end of 2011, said in January it switched to profit in 2014 for the first time since the start of reorganization and hopes to exit insolvency this year.
Fornetti Romania reported an estimated profit of EUR500,000 last year and a turnover of more than RON100 million.
The company employs over 400 people.
Fornetti Romania, based in Timisoara, was founded in 2001 under a partnership with Fornetti Kft. of Hungary. The company became a master franchiser for the brand in Romania, after starting out as a distributor. The company has a pastry factory near Timisoara.
Recently, the mother-company was taken over by Swiss-Irish Aryzta AG, stockholder with Origin Enterprises, which recently bought agricultural companies Comfert Bacau and Redoxim Timisoara.
Thus, Aryzta took over the portfolio of the largest frozen pastry companies in Eastern Europe, with over 1,300 employees in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.
Aryzta, the third largest frozen pastry producer worldwide, with annual revenue of EUR4.8 billion, aims to expand Fornetti business both regionally and Europe-wide.
The pastry and pretzel segment is one of the most expanded in the food sector, estimated at around 1.7 billion and with one company at every street corner. Around 85% of the companies on the market were independent in 2014, while the rest belonged to a chain.
(English version by Manuela Panescu)