The volume of retail ice cream sales (via supermarkets, hypermarkets, stalls etc.) stood at 45 million liters (or 450 million 100 milliliter ice cream cones) worth EUR225 million (including VAT) last year, according to the same source, which shows ice cream consumption rose 11% in volume in 2013.
The rainy weather so far this year has affected sales of ice cream, but some companies changed their strategy and posted growth.
“Alpin 57 Lux sales saw growth of several percent in the first part of the year compared with the year-ago period and this was possible because of several steps we took such as boosting customer numbers, releasing many new varieties and introducing two super premium ice cream flavors branded as Transalpina,” says Ioan Istrate, general manager of Alpin 57 Lux, one of the largest local ice cream producers, whose revenue stood at about EUR15 million.
He says overall ice cream consumption was down in the first part of the year due to the weather.
Unilever, too, saw higher ice cream sales after it started distributing it itself, according to Jarek Malinowski, the executive in charge of the over EUR180 million retail business of Unilever South Central Europe. Before that it had worked with Macromex as distributor.
Whereas a Romanian eats about two liters of ice cream a year, a Scandinavian eats eight, according to the latest data available. Scandinavians are the biggest ice cream eaters in Europe, while Romanians are at the bottom of the ranking, even though considering average temperatures during one year, they should be the ones eating more.
Weather is perfect for encouraging ice cream consumption in Romania, Malinowski said. Only Italy and Spain have more sunshine hours. On the other hand, weather in Scandinavia does not encourage consumption, he added.
Magnum ice cream brand (Algida) was one of Unilever’s most powerful brands in Romania along with Dove (personal care), Dero (detergent) and Becel (margarine), Malinowski said at the end of last year. Unilever’s ice cream business in Romania consists of the Algida and Napoca brands, the latter of which made in the FrieslandCampina (Napolact) plant in Romania.
On the other hand, Nestle Romania, one of the most important competitors of Unilever on the ice cream market, said a while ago that ice cream accounted for some 15% of its revenue, or about EUR24 million. Nestle Romania’s ice cream brands include JOE, Top Gun, Nirvana and Aloma.
Ice cream consumption, like beer and soft drinks consumption is tightly connected to the weather so cooler or rainier days may lead to as much as two-digit declines in sales.
“Sales of ice cream go down on rainy or cool days by 10% to 15%,” says Andreea Mihai, marketing director of Carrefour Romania. Sales of ice cream throughout the Carrefour network have risen both in value (1%) and in volume (20%) in the first part of the year.
The largest companies in the ice cream business in Romania are multinationals Unilever and Nestle and local producers Betty Ice, Top Gel, Alpin 57 Lux and Kubo Ice. The top five Romanian ice cream producers posted more than EUR70 million revenue last year, or almost half of the total ice cream market.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)