Higher costs to reshape sugar market

The leader of the domestic sugar market, Agrana Romania, has reported half-year sales very close to its results for the same period last year, despite the rainy weather that cut into the consumption of soft drinks. “Sales of sugar were pretty similar to last year. The rainy weather led to lower sales, compared with the similar periods in previous years, because fruit came out later and the consumption of soft drinks and ice cream was lower or delayed. Although the costs of raw materials, energy and fuel increased, as did environment-related expenses, competition still remains strong on a zero-growth market and we are going to see some restructuring within the industry,” said Emilian Dobrescu, the general representative of Agrana Romania, the owner of three production facilities in Romania. Dobrescu said that despite the problems, Agrana was in fact performing better than expected and was hoping to achieve its targets, “even if there was a chance profits would be affected”. ZF