Compania de Bere Romania completes $3.5m investment

Compania de Bere Romania (Romania Beer Company), a member of the SABMiller group, has opened a new boiling section at the brewery in Timisoara in which it invested $3.5 million.

The new boiling section will produce 17,500 hectolitres of beer per week and uses latest-generation equipment that is fitted with automated quality control systems.

“The investment in the boiling section is the first big step in the upgrading of the factory; it will be followed by installation of a new fermentation section and a rebuilding of the infrastructure,” clarified Aurelian Brent, manager of the Timisoara brewery.

SABMiller bought the factory in 2001, which currently has a capacity of 600,000 hectolitres per year and around 300 employees. Total investments made by Compania de Bere Romania in the Timisoara brewery amount to $5 million, money that was used to put together a new boiling station, install a complete production line for filtering and storage of filtered beer, upgrade pasteurising systems for bottled and kegged beer and the refrigerating station, and purchase laboratory equipment.

SABMiller has been in Romania since 1996 and owns four beer factories (in Cluj-Napoca, Buzau, Timisoara and Brasov), has a total capacity of 3 million hectolitres and approximately 1,300 employees.

This year the company took over the factory in Brasov. Three months from the acquisition, however, the new management decided to reorganise and outsource certain services and auxiliary activities, such that some 150 employees (about 30% of total staff) will be made redundant as of November 1.

The company has the following brands: Ursus Premium, Timisoreana Lux and Ciucas. It is also the distributor of Pilsner Urquell. Its own estimates show it to have 22% of the domestic market.

SABMiller concluded FY2004, which ended March 31, 2004, with $1.3bn in pre-tax profits and a $12.6bn turnover.

The Romanian beer market, with 12.8 million hectolitres, or 500-550 million euros a year, is one of the most disputed markets in Europe. The top four players on the market are part of international groups that make up the world’s top five: Brau Union (Heineken), SABMiller Romania (subsidiary of the world’s number three company), Interbrew Romania (subsidiary of the world’s number one company) and Tuborg Romania (part of world’s number five, Carlsberg Group).