Nestle Bulgaria said on March 21 that it registered growth in sales and profit for a fifth consecutive year in 2005.

The company's total sales increased 32 per cent year-on-year in 2005 to reach 135 million leva. Nestle Bulgaria's pre-profit grew by seven per cent to five million leva.

"Our turnover growth of 32 per cent was much higher than Bulgaria's food industry average of 5.5 per cent in 2005, which means that we performed much better than our competitors," the company's executive director Yiannis Lazaridis told a news conference.

In his words, 2005 had been very successful for Nestle's Bulgarian division and had laid the foundation for future development of the company.

The branch's export sales also grew by 10.6 per cent to reach 38.5 million leva on successful sales abroad of products like Kit Kat Chunky and other countlines (small waffles and chocolate bars), chocolate biscuits, Nescafe instant coffees and others.

Nestle Bulgaria's overall success in 2005 was due the large number of new products it launched and the growing sales of already established brands, Lazaridis said. The newly launched products included Coffee Mate non-dairy creamer, Smarties (a strategic product for the entire Nestle Group), Nescafe Cappuccino, Nestle Noir chocolate and other candy bars.

Other additions to the basket of brands came in the culinary segment, where Nestle is the undisputed leader in Bulgaria. New products for 2005 include three recipes of seasonings (Nestle Fix).

Nestle ended 2005 having the largest market shares in segments like soups (74 per cent), bouillons (70 per cent) and instant coffees (78 per cent). The company has managed to achieve very rapid growth in its market share in the seasonings segment - 36 per cent -, where it has been operating for less than two years.

It has leading positions in countlines (17.1 per cent), boxed chocolates (18.4 per cent) and chocolate tablets (12.1 per cent). Its share in these segments is considered very successful provided the very strong competition on the Bulgarian market.

Nestle Bulgaria invested 25 million leva in 2005 - 15 million in building and advertising brands, as well as in training employees, and 10 million in upgrading its production lines. The same amount of investment is earmarked in the company's budget for 2006.

Lazaridis said also that Nestle will independently operate in Bulgaria in 2006 its newly acquired Delta ice cream company. 

Nestle bought Delta Ice Cream in December last year for about 240 million euro to expand in the growing ice cream market in Greece and the Balkans. Delta Ice Cream is the leading ice cream business in Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania and Serbia-Montenegro. Its main brands - including Aloma, Boss, Magnum and Nirvana - are sold in large quantities in Bulgaria.