Mineral waters under bottle pressure

Mineral water sales had been growing for years but this positive period turned into stagnation, which after a while lead to declining sales. Last year minus 3 percent was registered in terms of volume sales. In the past 12 months private labels lost a few percentage points from their market share and are currently at 47-48 percent. According to Éda Pogány, Coca-Cola Hungary’s communications director this is the result of many cheap brands’ appearance on the market, the manufacturers of which are often the same as PL products’. Levente Balogh, owner-managing director of Szentkirályi Ásványvíz Kft. told Trade magazin that they reacted to market trends by selling their 1.5-liter Szentkirályi products for HUF 99 in January-February and by focusing on secondary placements in March. In the future the company will use ‘added value’ promotions such as their ‘Szentkirályi mineral water with free OXYGEN!’ campaign. Recently several check-ups questioned the reliability of mineral waters, which caused a certain level of insecurity among consumers – irrespective of how well-founded these findings were. Adrienn Horváth, marketing director of In-Food 2000 Kft. is of the opinion that manufacturer brands have to maintain high quality and establish an image and communication with which targeted buyers can identify themselves. Private label mineral waters still have a really large share of the market, which fact greatly influences manufacturer strategy: Dr Nárcisz Csákabonyi, Fonte Viva Kft.’s managing director is convinced that those who lack the finances for investing in marketing or lack well-established brands have no other choice but manufacturing PL mineral waters. Production costs of PET bottles have been growing for a while but this trend had minor influence on the average price of products. The question is how long manufacturers will be able to stick with this policy: the trend may even induce some kind of market clearance. János Solymos, Pet-Pack Kft.’s managing director is of the opinion that an increase in product prices would inevitably lead to lower sales. Higher packaging material costs urged manufacturers to focus their innovation activity on producing lower-weight bottles and caps. Last December Szentkirályi started the production of environmentally friendly bottles: these PET bottles are 4-5g lighter and their new, short caps weigh 30 percent less. The result: producing 300 tons less packaging material per year. Vöslauer products have a lighter cap, with a pocket ring on the cap of the 0.5-litre PET bottle. This year they come out with the 4 x 1-litre pack in shrink foil with a padded handle. The new packaging solutions primarily targets women. Vöslauer also continue with their spectacular secondary placements and will organise a prize game related to fashion. Pet-Pack will definitely not switch to a new PET bottle shape as Visegrádi won the Worldstar packaging competition a few years ago, becoming one of the best-looking mineral waters in the world. Pet-Pack also lowered the weight of PET bottles, just like Fonte Viva, who introduced the so-called shorty cap too. Another direction of innovation is flavoured waters: Coca-Cola Hungary appeared in this segment with NaturAqua Emotion two years ago. By now this range has become the second biggest among flavoured waters; blackberry-lime is the latest version. Szentkirályi appeared with the 0.5-litre version of their mildly carbonated mineral water in April, they expanded their lemonade range and added new flavours to their Jégtea family. This year new faces will appear on Szentkirályi bottles. Pet-Pack’s Balfi brand will return this summer completely reborn, supported by a strong communication campaign. Their Visegrádi and Pannon Aqua waters will also be backed with wide-ranging marketing and PR communication tools.