Swiss group Nestle makes 90 million wafers a year at its Romanian factory, and it exports 40 percent of them and of the Nescafe instant coffee produced at the same factory, according to the company.

Nestle, which has invested EUR 10 million in the Romanian factory since its acquisition in 2001, sends the wafers and coffee made by the 440 Romanians in the Timisoara factory to 12 countries in the world, including Greece, the Netherland, France, UK, and Israel.

Wafers  made in Romania are sold under the brand Balaton in Hungary, Mura in Bulgaria, and Nesquik in other countries. These wafers make a quarter of the exports, said Ramon Mendivil, the general manager of the Timisoara factory, quoted by Mediafax. Nestle plans to add more countries on its export list, mainly with the Nesquick brand.

The Nescafe brand is one of Nestle’s moneymakers in Romania, with 18 percent of the turnover, while the cooking products under the brand Maggi bring 17 percent of the sales. The Joe brand of wafers and ice-creams, a brand dedicated to the Romanian market, brings 10 percent of Nestle Romania’s business, the third largest contributor to the turnover.

With the coffee market on the down, and the baby food segment also plummeting with the lowering number of births, Nestle sees other products on an upwards trend. “We have to have a good summer, to have a better year. The ice-cream can make the difference,” said Herve de Froment, the general manager of Nestle Romania.

In 2012, Nestle’s sales in Romania reached some EUR 161 million, an 8 percent year-on-year increase. It was also a year of profit for the Swiss producer, after several years of losses, according to Mediafax.

Nestle, which currently runs 468 factories worldwide, and employs 300,000 people, entered the Romanian market in 1995. Six years later, it bought the Joe wafers factory in Timisoara from local businessman Florentin Banu.

Five more years down the road, Nestle bought Delta Ice Cream’s factory near Bucharest, only to move production to Bulgaria two years later.

Corina Chirileasa, corina@romania-insider.com