“Consumption habits are no longer as they used to be. Consumption is gradually veering towards the ‘value for money’ segment and unfortunately restaurants are slowly starting to open to ‘no name’ wines for instance,” Andrei Ghegoiu, 38, general manager of Heinrig Distribution told ZF in an interview.
“Price is very important when buying in this case and therefore price is affordable in the menu, too. This is happening even in premium and super-premium locations where customers are starting to look at prices much more often,” said the executive who has a sixteen-year experience in sales.
A graduate of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, he worked as an economist for Romcontrol for a year, then got into sales, working for brewer Efes and Mondelez International (the former Kraft Foods – sweets and coffee) and then joined Heinrig Distribution.
The German group that owns Heinrig Distribution, Heinemann, only had one company in Romania at first, Heinrig Impex, with the unit he now runs spinning off six years ago.
Andrei Ghegoiu has been Heinrig Distribution’s general manager since its establishment.
The products it distributes includes Davidoff cigarettes, Moods cigars, Unicum digestives, Sierra tequila, Stroh 80 rum, Riemerschmid bar syrups, and the wines made by Italy’s Marchesi Antinori and Romanian producer Vitis Metamorfosis, as well as premium sweets like Jelly Belly and Rausch.
Andrei Ghegoiu says Heinrig Distribution posted EUR56 million revenue and more than EUR1 million profit in 2013.
“Growth is exponential chiefly because of cigarettes. Cigarettes currently account for more than 70% of revenue.”
He expects revenue to amount to about EUR65 million this year.
“We are trying to achieve growth on other product categories so as not to rely so much on cigarettes for revenue. (…) We are in the process of attracting other brands and product categories we do not yet carry, which are in demand on the market.”
Ghegoiu says he will review the results of the brands and keep only those that do well and have potential. The company also plans to launch an online store this fall, where it will mainly sell sweets and beverages.
Competition on the FMCG distribution market includes Interbrands Marketing & Distribution, Macromex, Top Brands Distribution, Aquila Group and Whiteland Import Export.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)