September 8 2008, 12:04

Russia: growth of juices market slowed down

Due to sharp rise in prices for the main categories of food products, consumption of juices in the second quarter decreased. At that, for the whole line of non-alcoholic beverages was observed decrease, reported the experts of program “In focus” at RBK-TV.

“Due to sharp prices growth for food products, consumption moves forwards essential products. According to our data, the share of expenses on juice in general product basket reduced by 0.2%,”- reported Alexander Kostikov, PR-Director of the company Lebedyanskiy.

Nevertheless, the market participants expect for the growth of the domestic juice market, even taking into account that consumption of juices in Russia is much lower than in Europe – nearly 22 litters per person.

First of all, this will affect juice producers in the premium-segment of the market, and the economy class will become an “air bag”, supposed Tatyana Bobrovskaya, the analyst of the financial group Brokerkreditservice. According to her, in the first half year of 2008, the medium price segment has most actively developed.

The development strategies on the juice market are not expected to change even when the western companies enter the market.

We should note that the Russian juice market is divided among the western corporations. Coca-Cola increased its presence on the Russian market several years ago, having bought the companies Multon and PepsiCo, which may become the leading juice producer after acquisition of Lebedyanskiy. Nowadays, four large producers – Lebedyanskiy, Multon, Nidan, Wimm-Bill-Dann dominate on the domestic juice market. Their share on the market totals 85%.

The juice producers increase their profit going to the adjacent fields – cold tea, baby food. According to T. Bobrovskaya, despite general slowing of the growth rates of non-alcoholic beverages, the segment of cold tea in the first quarter showed growth at the level 40%, and in the second quarter – 15%. According to the opinion of the market participants, we have the market of non-alcoholic beverages in embryo state as for assortment, comparing with the American and Japanese markets, where 50-70 new products are introduced each year.

According to T. Bobrovskaya, juice market will show nearly 7% growth in volume terms and at the level 16-17% in money terms. However, this forecast may be revised as inflation in significant, RBK daily reported.