One eye is crying, the other is laughing…

Kisvári Veronika
buying and sales director
Bognár-Vin

Veronika Kisvári, buying and sales director of Bognár-Vin Kft. (the distributor of Ági fruit syrups) reported to our magazine that the pandemic restructured the fruit syrup market very much: retail sales and home consumption grew, while the HoReCa sector and wholesaler segments weakened. The company also makes private label products for several Hungarian and foreign partners.

Eszter Jakab
export and
marketing director
Gramex 2000

Eszter Jakab, export and marketing director of Gramex 2000 Kft. opines that the fruit syrup category continues to fly high in 2021. Gramex’s main strength is 2-litre products – in addition to the Sconto brand they manufacture private label 2-litre fruit syrups too. Raspberry, orange, strawberry and elder are the most popular flavours. There is also demand for private label products with higher fruit content, in 0.7-litre PET bottle packaging.

Problems with ingredient supply

László Torbán
sales director
Szikrai Borászat

We learned from László Torbán, sales director of Szikrai Borászati Kft. that their sales jumped because of the pandemic. Demand for their Piroska fruit syrup is the biggest in glass bottle packaging. The company sells more and more sugar-free and light products.

János Gólya, managing director of Stork Élelmiszer Manufaktúra Kft. said: shoppers have started to prefer higher quality fruit syrups. As the pandemic has made consumers go shopping less often, they are buying more groceries per shopping occasion and it was multinational retailers who profited from this trend.

For Yuva Kft. 2021 is a good year in sales, but they have problems with product ingredient supply – informed managing director Zoltán Szabó. There are supply interruptions and prices have soared. The company’s FruttaMax products have high fruit content and they are eco-friendly as well, since 23 parts of water need to be added to 1 part syrup.

Extremely high raspberry prices

János Gólya
managing director
Stork Élelmiszer
Manufaktúra

János Gólya from Stork Élelmiszer Manufaktúra Kft. talked to Trade magazin about rising fruit prices this year. Their fruit syrups are exclusively made of the fruit named on the bottles. He revealed that this year’s raspberry vintage was catastrophic in Europe, to the extent that companies without the necessary connections couldn’t even buy enough raspberries, so they were forced to decrease the fruit content of their syrups.

Zoltán Szabó
ügyvezető igazgató
Yuva

Zoltán Szabó admitted that Yuva Kft. had to increase product prices in the last quarter and another price adjustment will follow next Janaury. Eszter Jakab explained that there is no raspberry concentrate in Gramex 2000 Kft.’s branded syrups. As for the private label products they make, their prices will elevate very much even if they only have 1-percent raspberry content. Veronika Kisvári added that the prices of all fruit syrup ingredients increased considerably, e.g. packaging material, fruit concentrates, etc. Bognár-Vin Kft. is building a new factory where production will start next summer.

Innovation work continues

Yuva Kft.’s most popular products, 0.5-litre FruttaMax Bubble12 fruit syrups are available in 22 flavours and in 7 sugar-free variants. The Gigant and Sörp products also perform very well, and this September the company launched a soft drink range.

This spring Bognár-Vin Kft. rolled out an Ice tea syrup in peach and lemon flavours. These products have 25-percent fruit content and are made without additives. Next year new innovations will come out in the Ági range.

The increasing consciousness of consumers has caused syrups with no fruit content to be displaced

Stork Élelmiszer Manufaktúra Kft. believes there is great potential in online fruit syrup sales, so the company will engage in strong online advertising work.

Szikrai Borászati Kft.’s best-selling product format is the 0.7-litre size. The company’s latest innovation is the 1:26 dilution, 50-percent fruit content Piroska Essencia fruit syrup, which is available in 4 flavours and 0.25-litre size.

Gramex 2000 Kft. plans to launch new private label products and to focus on existing ones under the Sconto brand. The company is capable of manufacturing fruit syrups with any fruit content, composition or sugar level. //

The above article has also been published in Issue 2021/12-01 of Trade magazin.