February 11 2008, 11:02

Tetra Pak and SIG Combibloc competitor Elopak will pack Russian juices

Past Friday Norwegian pack producer Elopak announced about the intention to construct own enterprise in Russia. The investments to this project will amount to the sum not less than EUR 40 mln. Having implemented this project, in the fourth quarter 2009 the company will start supplying packs for Russian milk producers and for juice companies; Norwegian players have never worked with the latter producers before. In several years Elopak intends to occupy 12-15% of juice packs market, which is now divided between Tetra Pak and SIG Combibloc. Some Russian juice producers have already admitted the fact of negotiations with Elopak; others say they are ready to consider the company's proposals.

Igor Getman, the Director of Sales and Marketing in Russia and CIS countries, Elopak company, told that the construction of the plant should start in the first half this year; the launch is planned for the fourth quarter 2009. The enterprise will probably be set up in Moscowskaya region - such location is convenient from the point of view of logistics. According to Mr. Getman, the plant construction will need not less than EUR 40 mln. of investments. The plant capacity will amount up to 1 billion of packs per year.

Andrey Yanovskiy, General Director of "Nidan Juices", confirmed the fact of negotiations with Elopak in his interview to RBC daily. "We would be interested to work with new types of packs introduced by Elopak", he said. Now "Nidan" equally uses Tetra Pak and SIG Combibloc products. "Wimm-Bill-Dann" admitted the possibility of cooperation with Norwegian producer. "If Elopak is able to introduce new interesting types of packs for affordable price, we will be interested to consider such proposal", Anton Sarayikin, Press Secretary of the company says. Alexander Kostikov, PR Director of "Lebedyanskiy" company, hesitates to speak about the perspectives of cooperation with Elopak now.

The representatives of SIG Combibloc consider the intention of Elopak to control 12-15% of juice packs market to be rather challenging. "The company will have to make a lot of efforts for the implementation of these plans", Yuri Antipov, Marketing Director of LLC "SIG Combibloc" said to RBC Daily. "Also, they should take into account the presence of PET-bottles producers, in addition to cardboard packs producers, on juice market. The share of PET producers has obviously increased in medium price segment since recently". According to SIG Combibloc data, the company occupies around 30% of the market of aseptic cardboard juice packs in Russia; Tetra Pak has the rest of it. Tetra Pak company made no comments about the competitors' plans.