The Romanian ice cream brand is currently made at the Cluj plant of the Friesland Campina group. Unilever bought the Napoca ice cream brand from Friesland Campina in 2009, when it also took over distribution thereof to the local retail.
“Napoca ice cream is still manufactured in the Napolact plant in Cluj-Napoca. Meanwhile we are looking for the best choice of a plant for Napoca in order to preserve the tradition of ice cream recipes that use fresh milk and cream,” Unilever officials say.
Unilever is the largest ice cream producer worldwide with its Algida brand, its officials say, and has production facilities throughout the world, including Bulgaria and Hungary.
It does not have ice cream production operations in Romania, it only distributes the traditional Algida brands – Magnum, Carte D’or, BigMilk and the Napoca brand.
“Napoca ice cream has been a Unilever brand under the Algida masterbrand since 2009 and we have national distribution.”
Unilever has recently started to distribution its ice cream itself, taking over from Macromex.
Its market share reached 14.9% in 2014 (May-August season), 2.3% higher than in the year-earlier period, Unilever said. This puts it on the first place on this market, the same sources added.
Market research company Euromonitor estimated Romania’s ice cream market at EUR225 million and 45 million liters last year. At a 15% market share and relatively constant market, Unilever’s ice cream sales should amount to about EUR30 million to EUR35 million, according to ZF’s estimates.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)