While Supremia Group started with a store at the plant gate and then expanded in two malls with Povesti cu Condimente brand, Betty Ice chose the old towns of several major cities in Romania where it opened ice-cream shops, while Topoloveni jam is sold in two own stores of Bucharest.
Niche stores, where a single range accounts for over 80-90% of total sold products, are common in the shopping streets of West European countries, while in Romania most producers choose to seal contracts with food retailers.
“We opened own stores because of the very high taxes levied by supermarkets and the unfair competition coming from the part of companies pretending to produce jam and have dumping prices. In our stores, the price of a jar of jam stands at RON15 VAT included, while in other stores prices reach RON18 and even as high as RON29,” says Bibiana Stanciulov, general manager of Sonimpex Topoloveni.
For less than one year, two own stores under Topoloveni brand have operated in Bucharest, one in Amzei square (near Magheru boulevard) and the other one in Carol I Boulevard, two major shopping streets of Bucharest. The stores also sell tea, oil and natural products.
Stanciulov says she hopes to open further own stores in the future, but says she will not give up collaboration with major store networks, either.
Own stores developed by Romanian entrepreneurs are to be found in the meat industry, but very few entrepreneurs have bet on niche products such as jam or spice.
Betty Ice, with almost EUR20 million in revenue, has bet on own ice-cream stores after the Western model in the context where, in Romania, because of low consumption, large players have focused on modern or traditional retail and less on large stores. The company’s owner, Vasile Armenean opened the first ice-cream shop 5-6 years ago in Oradea.
“The idea of a store came up as I did not have the chance to be represented as I wanted in those cities. Stores account for around 8-10% of our business,” says Vasile Armenean.
The company owns four ice-cream shops in Sibiu, Oradea, Brasov and Cluj, but is carrying out similar investments in Bucharest, Constanta and Iasi. In Bucharest, the store will most likely open in 2016.
Betty Ice also owns 150 ice-cream kiosks countrywide.
Supremia Group, with over EUR32 million in revenue last year, owns three stores: one at the plant gate, one in Cluj and one in AFI Palace Cotroceni mall of Bucharest. The company also has an online store. Investments in the Bucharest store topped EUR20,000, according to company data.
Compared with other companies distributing spices and food ingredients to retailers, Supremia focuses on the “business-to-business” segment, namely direct deliveries to clients.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)