Sales of baby food through drugstores top 25m euros a year, butin recent years this channel has started losing ground to largemodern retail stores, reveals a ZF survey based on data from MEMRBand the main players in this industry. Owing to strong expansion ofinternational retail networks, negotiation power and in most of thecases the lower prices, large stores have gained ground ondrugstores, which have now come to account for only 47.7% in themarket, whilst in 2007 over 56% of baby food was handled bydrugstore owners. Danone Baby Nutrition values the market at around52m euros, and volume growth in 2009 reached 12%. Nestlerepresentatives put it at 285m RON (67m euros). According toNestle, the market advanced by 9% in 2009. Under the circumstances,sales through drugstores top 25m euros. The most important playersare Nestle, Numico, Humana, Hipp and Remetea, accounting for 91.8%of the market, according to MEMRB, clearly shaping up an extremelyconsolidated market. In terms of sales value, milk and cerealstogether make up over 90% of the market, with milk holding a 74.6%share.
