Aquanika entering juice market
MOSCOW. Sept 24 (Interfax) - LLC Aquanika, which is part of Gennady Timchenko's Volga Group, is entering the juice market, the head procurements at Aquanika, Alexander Voronin, told Interfax.
The production of Mugo brand juices is taking place at Aquanika's plant in Nizhny Novgorod Region. Shipments through distributors have already begun, and juices will appear on store shelves over the next several days. The product line includes apple and orange juices, as well as cherry nectar, Voronin said.
Aquanika works mostly with large suppliers of juice concentrate, and the company's raw materials could be supplied by apple producer Alma Holding in the future. The company said it was possible Volga Group was acquiring stake in Alma Holding.
According to Russian newspaper Kommersant, brand development was carried out by Vadim Kasyanov, who created one of Russia's most successful brands of vodka, Green Mark.
Aquanika produces Aquanika-brand water, as well as nonalcoholic beverages under the Ministerstvo Gazirovki brand. The company's plant in Nizhny Novgorod region has capacity of up to 500 million liters of product per year and was commissioned in 2010. Investments were $100 million.
According to the SPARK-Interfax database, LLC Aquanika had revenue of 823.4 million rubles in 2013, up 120% year-on-year. Cost of sales was 1.026 billion rubles versus 765.7 million rubles the year before. Net loss increased to 1.39 billion rubles in 2013 from 988.2 million rubles in 2012.
It was reported in early September that Volga Group, which owns Aquanika, is planning to acquire stake in Alma Holding. The Russian Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) approved LLC Volga Group to purchase 40% stake in LLC Alma Holding. Alma operates in Krasnodar territory, where it rents over 800 hectares of land. This is also where the company's refrigeration units and warehouses, as well as processing and sorting floors are located. In 2013, production exceeded 6,800 tonnes of apples.
The deal is planned to be finalized by the end of the year. "This investment will add to the group's consumer market portfolio of projects that are important for food safety in the country and for people's health. This particularly concerts our project to produce drinking water. For me, this is not only a business, but a part of my group's social mission as well," Volga's press service quoted Timchenko as saying.
According to the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), Russia produced 2.571 billion cans of fruit and vegetable juices, up 1.6% on 2012. The industry is dominated by enterprises belonging to global giants Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo.
