The grocery retail market showed 27% year-on-year growth in 2008, following an increase in sales volumes by 16%, according to the latest Nielsen Shopper Trends report.
Although the modern retail continues its upward trend, the traditional grocery stores still capture two thirds of FMCG market.
The share of hyper/supermarkets in modern retailing grew last year to 34%, from 29% a year earlier, while traditional trade reduced its share to 59% from 63% in 2007.
Discount stores continued to dominate the Romanian retail scene, as the most dynamic modern retail chains.
As for hypermarkets, the French-based retailer Carrefour had the most aggressive expansion strategy last year, doubling the number of stores to 22. In April, Carrefour had one store more from end-2008.
German Real, part of Metro Group, had a retail network of 20 stores, 6 more than in 2007, and added one more this year.
Kaufland’s chain covered 40 branches in April, 2 more than end-2008, and 9 more from 2007.
Auchan and Cora chains remained at 6 stores and 3 respectively.
The top of 10 best sold products in the modern retail was dominated by beer, outranking the prior-year No1, soft drinks sector. Thus, the sales of beer in the modern retail rose last year by 56% in value and by 50% in volume. The non-carbonated drinks drew 36% higher sales in value and 25% in volume.
Other top 10 best sold fast moving consumer goods were salami (39% up), oil (68% up), detergents (20% up), mineral water (45% up), cheese (58% up), cigarettes (30% up), yoghurt (51% up), coffee (43% up).
