Serving up local flavor
Scandanavia's largest beer exporter and second-largest beer producer, Royal Unibrew (RU), which bought the Brok and Strzelec breweries in April this year for zł.177.8 million, plans to attain three percent organic growth and double-digit growth in profits before the end of the year by focusing on regional brands.
The group has been importing the Danish Faxe beer to Poland for over 10 years, but its takeover of the two breweries this year means a significant expansion for the company. While still importing some amounts of Faxe from Denmark, the lion's share of the company's beer sold in Poland - including Faxe - will be brewed here.
Through the takeover, the company inherited the Brok and Strzelec brands, well-known all over Poland. With that, however, came a host of other brands, such as Rybnicki, which is popular in the coal-mining regions of Silesia, while Kanclerz is popular in northern Poland. It's in the pull of these local brands where the company sees its strength.
"We don't think it's a good strategy to suddenly bring all these regional brands to the national market," said the CEO at Royal Unibrew Polska, Robert Papła. "Much of our marketing activities will focus on those local, very specific markets."
The goal, according to Papła, is to first become a leader in those regional markets before moving on to the all-Poland market, where international giants such as the Netherlands' Heineken, Poland's Kompania Piwowarska, and Denmark's Carlsberg are duking it out.
To make matters even tougher, Belgian beer goliath InBev announced it would begin selling its worldwide brand Beck's in Poland via a partnership with PepsiAmericas (see Country Focus United States p. 22). At the moment, Royal Unibrew can only aspire to about two percent of the Polish market as a whole.
"It's difficult to become the fourth or fifth player in this market. The better strategy is to concentrate on regional markets," said Papła. By doing that, the firm thinks it can sell half of its newly acquired one million hectoliters of capacity in Poland by the end of this year, and raise turnover to zł.130-150 million.
The Royal Unibrew group owns nine breweries worldwide, including the two in Poland. The group recorded revenues of EUR 400 (zł.1,627) last year, with EUR 33.5 (zł.136) million in profits. Its plans see increasing those numbers to EUR 600 (zł.2,442) and EUR 45.6 (zł.186) respectively in 2005. RU employs 2,300 people worldwide, 340 of which are in Poland.
The group has been importing the Danish Faxe beer to Poland for over 10 years, but its takeover of the two breweries this year means a significant expansion for the company. While still importing some amounts of Faxe from Denmark, the lion's share of the company's beer sold in Poland - including Faxe - will be brewed here.
Through the takeover, the company inherited the Brok and Strzelec brands, well-known all over Poland. With that, however, came a host of other brands, such as Rybnicki, which is popular in the coal-mining regions of Silesia, while Kanclerz is popular in northern Poland. It's in the pull of these local brands where the company sees its strength.
"We don't think it's a good strategy to suddenly bring all these regional brands to the national market," said the CEO at Royal Unibrew Polska, Robert Papła. "Much of our marketing activities will focus on those local, very specific markets."
The goal, according to Papła, is to first become a leader in those regional markets before moving on to the all-Poland market, where international giants such as the Netherlands' Heineken, Poland's Kompania Piwowarska, and Denmark's Carlsberg are duking it out.
To make matters even tougher, Belgian beer goliath InBev announced it would begin selling its worldwide brand Beck's in Poland via a partnership with PepsiAmericas (see Country Focus United States p. 22). At the moment, Royal Unibrew can only aspire to about two percent of the Polish market as a whole.
"It's difficult to become the fourth or fifth player in this market. The better strategy is to concentrate on regional markets," said Papła. By doing that, the firm thinks it can sell half of its newly acquired one million hectoliters of capacity in Poland by the end of this year, and raise turnover to zł.130-150 million.
The Royal Unibrew group owns nine breweries worldwide, including the two in Poland. The group recorded revenues of EUR 400 (zł.1,627) last year, with EUR 33.5 (zł.136) million in profits. Its plans see increasing those numbers to EUR 600 (zł.2,442) and EUR 45.6 (zł.186) respectively in 2005. RU employs 2,300 people worldwide, 340 of which are in Poland.
