Romanian meat company to boost exports as sales rise

“Currently, 7% of our company’s sales are intended for Spain, Italy, Germany and Belgium. This year, we plan to increase our export sales to between 10% and 15% of the total,​” Olivian Bogdan, the director general of CIA Aboliv, told local business daily Ziarul Financiar.

Exports to rise​

Last year, the meat company reported sales of about €15m. This indicates that some €1.05m of CIA Aboliv’s revenue for 2016 was generated from export sales. In addition to Western European countries, CIA Aboliv supplies its output to Bulgaria and Moldova.

The Romanian meat industry player owns a plant in Mihai Viteazu, a municipality located about 35km from Cluj-Napoca, the second-largest city in Romania. The facility is enabled with a processing capacity of about 80 tonnes (t) per day, according to data released by CIA Aboliv.

The company’s product range consists of more than 200 processed pork and poultry meat products, including sausages, hams, frankfurters, pâtés and salami. CIA Aboliv sells its output under the Brio, Casa Jurdeana and Apetit brands.

New product range​

Earlier this year, the meat business introduced a new product range to the market, Salinate, comprising a number of dried pork meat products, developed in cooperation with the country’s salt mine Salina Turda.

“The Salinate range originates from our desire to meet our consumers’ expectations for unique, traditional products,​” Bogdan said.

It is noteworthy that local meat processors expect the country’s meat consumption to expand in the coming years as a result of the government’s decision from 2015 to cut the value-added tax (VAT) on meat from 24% to 9%.

CIA Aboliv sells its products through Romania-based retail chains, such as the Dutch-owned Mega Image, and also owns four stores in the country’s north-western Cluj county. CIA Aboliv’s own retail outlets in Turda, Câmpia Turzii and Mihai Viteazu operate under the brand of Brio. In total, the firm says its products are sold by more than 1,200 stores in Romania’s Transylvania and Banat regions. To ensure distribution, the meat company owns a fleet of about 60 commercial vehicles, according to data from CIA Aboliv.

Set up in 1992, CIA Aboliv is owned by local businessman Bogdan Ilie Daniel who acquired a formerly state-owned business, and gradually upgraded the company’s meat processing capacities with the use of funds from the EU’s Special Accession Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (SAPARD).

The company says its facility in Mihai Viteazu, about 371km from the country’s capital Bucharest, is IFS-, HACCP- and ISO 9001-certified. CIA Aboliv is operated by a workforce of about 330 employees, according to data from the Romanian Ministry of Finance.