AlpinA maker expands production

Modares & Witt, the company that makes the AlpinA chocolate has invested four million euros in a centre to make chocolate, biscuits and wafers in Bucharest, as well as in storage facilities. The investment was started about a year ago, and, as the company’s administrative manager Luigi Iorga says, it will continue through next year, too. The first productive facility of the company was opened in the Titan area in Bucharest in 1997 and the total investments it required amount to 4.5 million euros. The company is part of the Peral Group, which deals in distribution. The shareholders of the group are three Romanian individuals. Modares & Witt makes candies, chocolate tablets and wafers, sold as AlpinA and Nice (middle segment) and Express wafers (bulk segment). “Chocolate candies and cocoa-cream filled candies account for the largest share in our turnover, about 35%, followed by cocoa tablets, 30%,” Iorga said. He specified he estimated sales to go up by 80% this year, but did not say exactly how much they were expected to amount to. Finance Ministry data show the company sold some 2.6 million euros’ worth last year, which means that if the 80% goal is attained, this year’s sales should be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 4.7 million euros. ZF