Fabrica de Lapte Brasov, the maker of the Olympus dairy products, ranks first among the exporters of processed foods, a ranking dominated by meat products, sweets and soft drinks producers, according to a ZF analysis based on National Statistics Institute data.
ZF picked the food exporters from among the top 1,000 exporters in Romania. The National Statistics Institute only provided the exporter ranking and not the value of their exports.
Olympus ranks 174th among Romania’s exporters and ZF estimates its exports to EUR35 million to EUR50 million starting from the official information released by the company that they account for 75% of its production. Olympus posted EUR55 million revenue last year.
Processed foods are far from matching the value of the grain exports, for instance. This shows Romania prefers to export raw material instead of brands, therefore the country is not an important competitor on the processed products market.
The best example that illustrates the limited power of Romanian finished goods exports is bakery industry.
Romania ranks 18th in the world by wheat production in the 2014/2015 season and tenth among exporters. Grain traders have the biggest volumes on international markets, while flour, bakery and other wheat products mostly stay ‘at home’.
“We are unable to export processed foods. We export grain, and then it comes back as finished products at much higher prices, at markups of over 100% (…),” says economic analyst Dragos Cabat.
“The major Romanian investors prefer to invest silos and export grain which generates a higher margin. They’re making a lot of money from this and one does not need to struggle to manufacture something when one can just resell.”
Cabat believes Romania needs foreign investment in modern production facilities, as well as a market for products like breakfast cereals, which are gaining popularity and could help the processed product market.
The 100 largest exporters in Romania also include Ameropa and Bunge, some of the leading grain traders. However, the first that uses flour to make finished food products is Chipita Romania, part of the Greek group by the same name, which ranks 203rd.
Romania’s top exporters operate mainly in car and automotive component manufacturing, textile industry and oil industry.
Leading exporters of foods and beverages include Coca-Cola HBC and PepsiCo, via its bottler Quadrant-Amroq Beverages, whose plants in Romania have become important suppliers for the neighboring markets.
Coca-Cola HBC Romania, for instance, ships almost half of the production of Cappy Pulpy fruit beverage of its Ploiesti plant abroad. PepsiCo’s plant in Dragomiresti, Ilfov, near Bucharest, exports significant volumes of ice-tea to Turkey and Greece.
Other major exporters are a number of companies owned by Romanian entrepreneurs such as poultry processors Aaylex Prod (Coco Rico), and Transavia, as well as insolvent Avicola Crevedia.
Sweets exporters include brothers Ioan and Viorel Micula with their European Food and Damian Mereu, owner of biscuit producer Croco.
The largest sweets exporter in Romania is Chipita, which makes 7Days croissants, followed by Nestle Romania, which exports wafers made in its Timisoara plant.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)