The sales of specialty cafés now stand at EUR10 million to EUR15 million, according to ZF estimates.
Romanians spend about 4 billion lei (EUR870 million) in cafés and bars in the country and the local market has been growing, according to the data supplied by market research company Euromonitor. There are no segmented data for the café market only, because it is heavily fragmented, with Starbucks in the lead. The US-held group had a 2% market share last year, judging from 2016 financial data, the latest available, the same source said.
The café market in Romania has been developing in two directions. On the one hand, there is the growing number of independent specialty cafés, and on the other the café chains, Mateusz Sielecki, regional director of Starbucks for Romania and Bulgaria has recently said. He works for Poland’s Amrest, the holder of the Starbucks franchise on the two markets.
He says he has noticed a significant development of specialty cafés especially in the past two years and this is good for the market because each café responds to different needs. As a result, Starbucks introduced a new concept on the market, Clover Reserve, a café in Bucharest’s Old Town. Specialty cafés have also developed in the big cities of the country like Cluj, Timisoara, Iasi and Constanta.
“We believe the 3rd wave coffee, as the specialty café phenomenon is called is in full swing in Romania. (…) I think the time is right for such a national or even international café chain,” says Marcelus Suciu, who, along with Dani Isai established the Narcoffee Roasters café chain.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)