Austrian investor Johann Gierlinger (owner of Convenience Prod), Ioan Popa (Transavia) and the Naghi family (Aldis Calarasi) are the top three exporters of processed meat products in Romania, a market that reached EUR100 million last year.
Beside well-known names such as CrisTim, Caroli, Kosarom, Scandia or Reinert, the ranking also includes niche producers such as Rolux or Bioprod, which process snail meat. As a matter of fact, Convenience Prod, leader of this segment, also focuses on ready-to-cook meat products such as schnitzels or cordon bleu, an area tapped to a lesser extent by other players, as sausages and salamis still bring the largest slice of revenue.
Exports cover loan rates
“We operated the first exports 5-6 years ago, after Romania joined the EU. This is a segment that generates euro amounts that help us pay our foreign currency loans without being exposed to forex risks,” explained Neculai Apostol, owner of Kosarom group, a top 20 processed meat exporter.
At the time the company took the first steps abroad, processed meat exports of Romanian companies neared EUR40 million and entrepreneurs active in this industry were starting to feel the taste of profit from trucks sent to major economies of Western Europe and to cities and regions with the biggest concentrations of Romanian communities.
Domestic processors most firmly tapped European markets considering over 95% of the value of last year exports is in the EU markets. This can also be accounted by Romanian processors’ not having had access so far to key markets outside the EU, such as Russia and China, due to restrictive sanitary rules.
Exports of snail meat of EUR2.7 million
The top of the 10 largest processed meat exporters in 2013 includes Rolux, which owns a snail plant in Hateg city, Hunedoara. The company collected, processed and exported snail meat worth EUR2.7 million last year.
“Production goes entirely abroad as Romania lacks a market for such products,” explained Simona Rosu, manager of the company.
France is the largest EU market for snail meat and Romanian companies delivered products worth of EUR4 million to this country last year, or 80% of exports along this line.
Bioprod Avrig, with revenue of EUR0.6 million/annum, also operates on this segment, and is among the top 20 exporters.
Though the market of processed meat product exports has posted a ninefold increase in the past decade and hit an all-time high last year, processors’ export figures are still below the market potential.
Romania ranks 10th in the EU by meat production, but in the first 11 months of last year ranked as low as 18th in terms of exports of processed meat products.
Romanian exporters last year covered 92% of revenue from deliveries inside the EU and sausages made one third of exported products.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)