The message comes at a time of uncertainty due to the sanitary crisis, on the one hand, and to the impact on private consumer spending and the overall economy, on the other.
“The year 2020 taught us everything can change at any time. What we can safely say is we will not allow our plans and involvement in Romania to be affected by the pandemic a lot,” says James Simmons, general manager of Unilever South Central Europe.
Romania is a very important market for Unilever and the group’s actions in the past 30 years have proven so, he added.
Unilever has import and distribution and manufacturing operations in Romania. It has plants in Suceava – which makes ice cream, Ploiesti – detergent and Bucharest – foods.
Simmons announced investments in the Ploiesti plant in late 2020, after having previously announced development of the Suceava facility.
He did not provide any details at the time.
Unilever’s import business generates most revenue, but manufacturing is growing now that the group has consolidated its position through acquisitions – ice cream producer Betty Ice in 2018, the majority stake in Fru Fru, a healthy food business, a year later, to complement its plant in Ploiesti. USCE’s first investment in the Central and Southern Europe was in Romania.
Unilever posted 1.4 billion lei revenue in Romania in 2019, according to the latest available data.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)