The private brands, that is those brands launched by the major retail chains have picked up speed on the soft drinks market this year, becoming a sales drive for the retail networks, as well as a new marketing tool for their respective producers.

According to market researcher Canadean, the sales volume for the soft drinks sporting private labels doubled this year compared with 2003. And that happened even though total soft drinks consumption stagnated.

"The private brands developed along with the modern retail, and the private-label soft drinks are becoming an increasingly more important category of the overall market, after having seen a doubling this year. This category was barely accounting for 0.5% of the market last year and has come to 1-2% this year, albeit the total market stagnated," Angela Preoteasa, the head of Canadean, said.

The sales of private brands will exceed 20 million litres this year, compared with the about 10 million last year.

The total soft drinks market in Romania will maintain at approximately 2.1bn litres this year.

The producers who only sell the merchandise but the not the packaging stand to profit from this new type of products.

"To us the private brand contracts with Metro and Carrefour are very favourable and the more hypermarkets open the more tenders we will participate in," Flavia Imparatu, a manager of Sun Industries said.

Sun Industries, which employs about 60 people, concluded such contracts with both Carrefour (Marca 1) and with Metro (Aro soft drinks). The majority shareholder of the company is a Lebanese-born individual. Sun Industries has a 10,000 sqm facility in the Bragadiru commune, where it makes cleaning products and soaps besides soft drinks and detergents.

Many of the factories making private brands are located