Coffee outlets, hotels and restaurants are still a long way off becoming the preferred places for coffee drinkers with Romanian consumers continuing to prepare their own coffee at home, reveals a survey conducted by market research firm Daedalus Consulting.
In terms of consumption habits, 80% of coffee is still prepared at home, while coffee shops, restaurants and fast-food outlets account for 10%, as do coffee vending machines, research reveals.
Daedalus conducted the survey in mid-2007 on adults living in cities.
"The on-premise channel accounts for 4.7-4.8% of the Romanian coffee market," estimates Dan Lazarescu, general manager of Cafea Fortuna, the biggest Romanian coffee producer. He explains this figure because of consumers' habit of preparing their morning coffee themselves, at home using the traditional method.
In comparison, the on-premise channel dominates consumption on more developed markets in Europe, where coffee consumption per capita is several times bigger than Romania's average.
According to the data provided by the International Coffee Organisation, in 2006 Romania was positioned last among countries that joined or were about to join the EU in terms of the volume of coffee imports per capita.
"The coffee market expanded by 9.5% last year on 2006, due to the rising number of consumers that buy coffee more than twice a week, and because of the larger quantities of coffee consumed daily, with Romanians having started, in late 2007, to drink more than one cup per day," explains Matanya Schwartz, general manager of Elite Romania. He estimates the market will continue to advance this year by 6-7% against 2007 due to increasing consumption and demand. However, the frequency of consumption depends on the type of coffee.
"In recent years, the number of consumers of coffee and coffee-based products has decreased. (...) This is most probably explained by the diverse availability of other caffeine-based products," the Daedalus survey suggests.
For coffee varieties, natural coffee (roasted) is the most popular, though the number of people that drink it went down (from 77.2% in 2004 to 64.7% in 2007). The penetration of instant coffee (15.3%) and cappuccino (7.7%) has been relatively constant compared with 2004.
Over the past three years, "3 in 1" coffee has been the most dynamic coffee category.
On the market (estimated at 150-200m euros) the biggest players are now Elite, Kraft Foods, Tchibo and Cafea Fortuna. Whereas multinationals Kraft Foods, Tchibo and Elite are continuing to count on the development of the premium segment, Romanian producer Cafea Fortuna is generating the largest part of sales from bulk coffee and is the category's market leader.
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