An investment of 22 million euros has been made soft drinks industry “Vikos SA”, an investment that actually creates a mega-factory in the Epirus region, thirty years after launching a leading company in the bottled water category. This is an investment that follows a €47 million investment program implemented by the company over the past seven years.

The investment relates to the creation of a new production and bottling plant in Kalpaki, Janina, where one of the company’s five factories is already located, capable of producing 20,000 glass bottles per hour and 42,000 aluminum packages per hour. The new facility will be added to the existing one (359,000 bottles per hour), bringing the company’s total capacity to 421,000 bottles per hour, making it the leader in the country. The new facility occupies 8,800 sq.m. (preparation room, bottling room, storage and auxiliary rooms), and with the completion of the construction of the new unit, the total area of ​​the company’s construction facilities will approach 100,000 sq.m.

Recall that in total the company has 4 bottling plants for water and soft drinks, as well as a plant for the production of PET preforms and caps, having in fact a fully vertically integrated production.

The total capacity of the enterprise reaches 421,000 bottles per hour, which makes it the leader in the country.

New investments in production lines and new products and of course the recovery of the tourism market last year and especially this year led the company to close last year with a turnover of 91 million euros, an increase of 16.40% compared to 2020, while in 2022 it expects even more growth, about 20%.

According to company data presented yesterday at a special press event by Mr. Konstantinos Sepetas, Vice President of the company and son of the founder of Vikos, Mr. Petros Sepetas, until September, Vikos water, based on sales data in supermarkets, grew at a rate of 7 .4%, i.e. much higher than the entire market (2.1%), and its share (in sales volume) for the nine months of January-September 2022 amounted to 17.1%, having strengthened by 0.8 p.p. compared to the corresponding period last year.

Vikos-branded soft drinks are also experiencing growth, which the company began in 2014, having previously had significant experience producing soft drinks for Lidl. According to the data provided by the company, while the soft drinks market as a whole has a growth of 1.4%, the Vikos brand is growing at a rate of 10.2%. The market share (based on sales volume in supermarkets as well as in the sector-critical retail retail market) is 7.1%, a share that seems low but is in fact not negligible as the category has very large shares of two well-known multinational corporations Coca-Cola and Pepsico, as well as Greek enterprises with a long-term presence in this category.

In the overall soft drink market, they are in fourth place behind Coca-Cola, Lux and Pepsico, in orange juice in third place, in lemonade also in third place after Lux and Coca-Cola, and in soft drinks such as cola after Coca-Cola and Pepsico. . In March 2023, the company entered the fast-growing category of pink grapefruit, which is generally “working” at a rate of 42.2%, and Vikos already has a share of 14.2% in small retail and 11.5% in supermarkets. market.