This year's first heatwave set the tone for rises on the main seasonal markets, which recorded weak sales in the first six months of the year as a result of the consumption decline and of a rainy summer.
The temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius recorded in the last few days confirm hopes of beer producers, which expect to make up for the first-half sales declines during the summer months.
Beer sales react the most strongly to sudden temperature rises - a sales rise during a heatwave can exceed 30% compared with a period of regular temperatures.
"We would say independent beer producers saw a 12-15% rise in sales in the last week against the previous week, with the temperature/humidity ratio being favourable to beer consumption," said Vifor Versescu, general manager of the Association of Independent Brewers (PSIPBR).
However, PSIPBR covers only a small share of the beer market, while Romanian branches of beer industry multinationals account for over 80% of beer sales.
"It has been a good week. Beer sales rose amid high temperatures," said Shaine Shachar, president of United Romanian Breweries Bereprod, the local subsidiary of Danish group Carlsberg and producer of Tuborg beer. However, he could not provide information on the growth rate of the company's last week sales.
Two or three weeks ago, mineral water bottlers were still waiting for the peak sales season to start. At the end of June, overall volumes of water bottled from sources of the SNAM (National Mineral Waters Company) stagnated against the first six months of last year despite the fact that producers saw consumption resume growth again in April.
"A few days of hot weather can see mineral water sales rise by 30% in mineral water sales. We don't have centralised data yet on sales of the last three days (the end of last week i.e.), when the heatwave was felt strongest in bottlers' sales. Beer sales react more strongly to temperature rises than water sales do," said Adrian Teslovan, marketing manager of Romaqua Group, bottler of Borsec mineral water.
The hot weather also brought about a rise in ice cream sales. "Our sales rose by 15% following the heatwave. The season started a while ago, but there was an around one-month disruption due to the rainy weather," said Ioan Istrate, owner of ice cream producer Alpin 57 Lux, one of the top three players on the Romanian ice cream market.
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