Polish meat treats penetrate new markets
Contrary to pre-accession expectations of an influx of foreign meat industry investments, it is the locally-based firms (as the Business Journal forecast two weeks ago) not foreign concerns, that have begun the post-accession consolidation of the local meat industry. The process started, as we predicted, with ZM Duda's announcing plans to take over a smaller - as yet unidentified - competitor. Not long after, the heretofore struggling local meat firm announced that it had found an investor in not quite domestic but certainly Central European-owned pork and beef distributor Alsero, to give it a post-bankruptcy afterlife.
The recent acquisitiveness of Alsero, which has, already made three investments and is planning further ones on the local market, according to Romuald Robaczewski, a company representative, points to another likely post-accession development: According to industry consultants, parties throughout the industry are fighting to enforce their positions in the cultivation-to-processing-to-distribution chain, so as to ensure access to retail in a market whose terms are increasingly dominated by powerful hypermarket chains.
"We're seeing a lot of forward and backward acquisitions by industry players throughout Europe," said a consultant at Dutch-based HM Food Consultants, going on to add that growing hypermarket hegemony means that distributors are also becoming more and more powerful.
"European players are intent on securing sales markets, not production capacity," agrees Michiel Klomenhouver, consultant at another Dutch-based food and drink consultancy, Rabobank International. Alsero, by the looks of it, doesn't want to be left behind.
Local meat processor Sokółow (controlled by Finnish HK Ruokatolo), meanwhile, is exploring other sales routes, hoping to take advantage of potentially high margins in delicacy smoked meats through sales in the company's franchised shops that they have liberally draped and painted with the firm's brand logo in 'old' EU markets. The firm, which already has 12 such shops placed near the German border, recently opened another in Berlin and plans to open several more in other major German cities.
According to Management Board Director Jerzy Majchrzak, an important company strategy is also to maintain a high brand profile by regularly entering international fairs, such as Europe's prestigious Frankfurt Fair, at which the company won three gold medals last May.
Ironically, considering the dismissive remarks of one retail market expert ("I don't think that you can really talk about brands in meat"), of all the local food and drink sectors struggling to impress their names on EU markets, it's arguably sausage and ham brands that are (together, of course, with vodka) doing the best at making their presence felt.
The recent acquisitiveness of Alsero, which has, already made three investments and is planning further ones on the local market, according to Romuald Robaczewski, a company representative, points to another likely post-accession development: According to industry consultants, parties throughout the industry are fighting to enforce their positions in the cultivation-to-processing-to-distribution chain, so as to ensure access to retail in a market whose terms are increasingly dominated by powerful hypermarket chains.
"We're seeing a lot of forward and backward acquisitions by industry players throughout Europe," said a consultant at Dutch-based HM Food Consultants, going on to add that growing hypermarket hegemony means that distributors are also becoming more and more powerful.
"European players are intent on securing sales markets, not production capacity," agrees Michiel Klomenhouver, consultant at another Dutch-based food and drink consultancy, Rabobank International. Alsero, by the looks of it, doesn't want to be left behind.
Local meat processor Sokółow (controlled by Finnish HK Ruokatolo), meanwhile, is exploring other sales routes, hoping to take advantage of potentially high margins in delicacy smoked meats through sales in the company's franchised shops that they have liberally draped and painted with the firm's brand logo in 'old' EU markets. The firm, which already has 12 such shops placed near the German border, recently opened another in Berlin and plans to open several more in other major German cities.
According to Management Board Director Jerzy Majchrzak, an important company strategy is also to maintain a high brand profile by regularly entering international fairs, such as Europe's prestigious Frankfurt Fair, at which the company won three gold medals last May.
Ironically, considering the dismissive remarks of one retail market expert ("I don't think that you can really talk about brands in meat"), of all the local food and drink sectors struggling to impress their names on EU markets, it's arguably sausage and ham brands that are (together, of course, with vodka) doing the best at making their presence felt.
