Bergenbier drives Interbrew sales up 35%

Interbrew Romania, a branch of the world leader on the beer market, InBev, the producer of Stella Artois and Bergenbier, posted a 35% growth in the volume of sales in the first six months of the year against the same period of 2005. According to company data quoting MEMRB, Interbrew’s market share then reached 22%, against 21.5% at the end of last year. Central and Eastern Europe has been one of the drives behind InBev’s growth, with the percentage gained in the area (8.2%) being due to the good results seen in Romania (35%) and in Serbia (12%), according to information from the Belgian group. “The first half of the year brought record sales for Interbrew Romania. All our brands witnessed significant rises,” stated Mihai Ghyka, general manager of Interbrew Romania. Ghyka specified that it was again Bergenbier that saw the best results, but the company also derived gains on the PET-bottled beer segment. This year, Interbrew completed a seven million-euro investment to acquire a line that bottles beer in PET containers at the Ploiesti-based plant. The line has a capacity of 18,000 two-litre bottles an hour.