IPEC Alba Iulia, one of the largest producers of porcelain plates in Europe, invests 10 million euros in one of the largest cup factories on the continent.

The business was established in 1990 by the Covaciu family of entrepreneurs, and today the products made in Alba Iulia are sent to all corners of the world ♦ IPEC produces 1% of the plates worldwide.

IPEC Alba Iulia, one of the largest producers of porcelain plates in Europe, plans to invest 10 million euros in a porcelain cup production unit. The factory will also be located in Alba Iulia, where the company’s current production unit is also located, and construction is to start next year.

“If everything goes as we expect, we plan to build the most modern cup factory in the world, we want to build it also in Alba Iulia. If everything goes well, construction will begin next year. The factory could be ready in six months, the important thing is not to get confused with various opinions”, says Cristian Covaciu, co-founder and shareholder of IPEC.

The company already produces porcelain plates in a factory in Alba Iulia, even reaching a capacity of about 50 million plates per year, but the production of cups could complete the portfolio and lead to an increase in the business of the Romanian business.

In the current factory, cups are already produced, but the share of this article is small in total, plates being clearly dominant.

“The investment comes to complete a range of products. We have sold around 650 million plates so far, only a few million cups. The new unit would compensate for the lack of cups in our offer”, he says.

IPEC Alba Iulia was established in 1990, the entrepreneur Cristian Covaciu coming from a family that worked for several decades in the field of porcelain. The first products manufactured at Alba Iulia were figurines in the shape of porcelain ballerinas, but today the company only produces plates and cups. Last year, the company had business of 157 million lei, being the highest revenues in the history of the business, according to the data of the Ministry of Finance.

In Spain alone, over 8 million plates were sold last year, and the entrepreneur says that the products manufactured in Alba Iulia are found in many restaurants in Romania and Europe, but also in people’s homes. IPEC Alba Iulia works both with restaurants and with some of the biggest retailers in Europe, such as Ikea, Carrefour, Metro and Aldi. The entrepreneur says that this period, marked by rising prices, is one of the most difficult moments in business.

“In a single year, energy costs increased from 7% (share of total costs) to 36%. We haven’t lost customers, but there is pressure from them to reduce prices and align ourselves with products coming from China. The price of containers from China is 1,500 dollars per unit. It doesn’t seem normal to me that it comes from tens of thousands of kilometers and costs only 1,500 dollars, and we pay about 3,000 dollars from here to Germany”, he explains.

The entrepreneur does not expect a decrease in business this year, but he wants alignment and stability at the European level. Some of its biggest competitors are producers from Spain and Portugal, who do not face the same energy prices, even having half the costs of the business in Alba Iulia.

There is still room for development in the market, says Cristian Covaciu, but predictability is needed.

“If today we should offer the promotions, make the Christmas plan, we don’t really know what to rely on, what electricity and gas prices, we are trying to stabilize these prices so that we can offer”, he adds.

Over time, the entrepreneur has received proposals to sell the company, but it is not a desirable thing for him. In the future, the company will be taken over by the next generation, so one of his daughters plans to run the family business.

Source: Ziarul Unirea