Eckes-Granini believing in strong local brands

Thomas Hinderer, chairman of the board from the Eckes-Granini group visited Hungary in May. He discussed the international trends in the market of soft drinks with us in Siófok. – Though expansion of the fruit juice market stopped in Europe last year, you still succeeded in increasing your revenues. – As a result of a change in consumer behaviour and rising fruit prices, the classic European market of fruit juices is stagnating, or even shrinking. This however, has little effect on us, as we focus on continuous product development and enhancing local brands, which brought us double digit growth in 2006 and 2007. The fact that we are present in 15 countries allows us to transfer best practices from one market to another. – Recent changes in consumer behaviour have attracted the attention of the two classic cola manufacturers. Their powerful distribution networks and enormous marketing budgets can make them dangerous competitors. – They have spent huge amounts on trying to enter the German, Spanish or Swiss fruit juice markets in the past twenty years, but without much success. Strong local brands like hohes C or Granini stopped them everywhere. Of course, we are keeping an eye on the development of the Coca-Cola and PepsiCo product ranges, but our business philosophies are very different. – SIÓ-ECKES Kft, the largest domestic fruit juice manufacturer continues to produce dynamic growth and good results. Can SIÓ become a regional brand? – Our philosophy is based on our belief in strong local brands. We have retained local management everywhere following our acquisitions, as they know their local markets best. Our only multinational product is Granini. We are not planning to develop any of our local brands into an international brand.