Romania: Ursus Breweries’ Timisoreana goes PET to boost retail sales

Mihai Barsan, the brand manager of Timisoreana, a beer that is part of the portfolio of Ursus Breweries, number two on the domestic beer market, says that after having attained a 12% share of the hotel-restaurant-catering market, Timisoreana "needed" PET packaging to boost retail sales, Ziarul Financiar posted August 16.

"During the financial year concluded in March 2006, Timisoreana Lux posted a 48% increase in sales, and the market share of Timisoreana on the hotel-restaurant-catering segment has reached 12% over the last few months," Barsan specified. According to the brand manager of Timisoreana, the brand is the market leader of this sector.

"Timisoreana's goal is to be the leader of the mainstream segment on the retail market, as well; as PET-bottled beer dominated this segment, we really needed to launch a PET version," Mihai Barsan adds.

He says Ursus Breweries has been researching the possibility of launching the PET-bottled version of Timisoreana for several years, but the decision had to wait until certain conditions were met.

"The development of PET as beer packaging has come to the point where it is just another packaging, with no "economy" meaning to it. The PET-bottled beer market is rising and we have been watching it for several years. PET as beer packaging has developed a great deal over this period of time, both in terms of technology and in terms of image," Mihai Barsan says.

Ursus Breweries is the second leading player on the beer market, having posted turnover of 150 million euros last year and gross profit in excess of 19 million euros. Unlike its main competitors, however, Ursus only had one brand on the PET beer segment, which has been the fastest growing of all over the last three years.

While Brau Union, the leader of the local market has six brands sold in PET-bottled versions (Golden Brau, Bucegi, Gambrinus, Harghita, Hategana and Ciuc) and Interbrew, the number three on the market, has a strong position on the PET segment with its Bergenbier Q-Pack and Noroc brands, as well as more recently adding the German Lowenbrau brand, Ursus Breweries only had Ciucas on this market. Ciucas has undergone a marketing improvement process over the last six months, with the product now distributed throughout the entire country as a result, company officials say.

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