Agros Nova battles for top position
the country's largest producer of fruit juices within the next
three years, despite having lost ground since the merger which
formed it early last year.
AN was formed through the merger of Agros Fortuna and Sonda in the second half of last year. Since then it has been a rocky path for the company, with a loss of market share in the all-important juice sector. Although the merger was formed with the intention of becoming the biggest player in the juice sector, restructuring charges and establishing a new marketing regime have all taken their toll, with sales slipping as a result.
However, the company is still the biggest player in both the jam and tomato sauce markets, a strength which it hopes will able it to develop its brand names in the fruit juice sector.
At the beginning of last year AN's combined sales in the fruit juice sector were almost neck and neck with the current biggest supplier, Maspex. Both players had approximately a 25 per cent share of the market. Now, however, AN's share of the market has slipped by 20 per cent against Maspex.
AN says that to rectify this position it aims to invest some PZ103 million(€21.5m) into the development of new markets for its juices.
Analysts say that the Polish market for fruit juices has still to live up to the western European standard whereby the two dominant players on the market attract a 50 per cent share of the market, however, given time and further investment from AN, the consensus is that this objective should be reached as a matter of course.
Analysts also believe that AN has undertaken an arduous task to win back so much of the market in such a short space of time, however the group has the advantage of strong financial backing in the form of Enterprise Investors, which is the groups strategic investor and which originally instigated the merger between Argos Fortuna and Sonda.
