Nordic Group celebrates 27 years and is moving to the next generation of management

Aurel Dragan 10/05/2018 | 15:08

Nordic Group, one of the biggest distributors of food products in Romania, is celebrating 27 years since its founding in 1991, when three friends decided to open a business, a consignment store. “They sold anything they could bring from countries like Turkey, Hungary or China. They even brought refrigerators from Hungary at one time”, says Ciprian Moldoveanu, the son of one the founders and general manager of Nordic Food Romania.

Slowly they started importing food products, mostly from Italy, and in 1994 they formed Nordic Import Export. After several other partnership, in 1996 they bought Vitan dairy factory and started producing Linco margarine with a Dutch partner that later took over the factory.

Step by step the company grew with new warehouses, new logistic solutions and even start producing dry pet food. Today, the group is formed by four companies, Nordic Food, Nordic Logistic, Nordic Petfood Production and Nordic Pet Food Distribution. In 2017, the group had an income of EUR 85 million (RON 324 million), 200 brands in portfolio and 2,700 products, 18,450 clients, a storage are of 10,800 sqm and 540 employees.

About 70 percent of the groups business is coming from Nordic Food. “Our clients are HoReCa and bakeries, pastries and cake shops” says Ciprian Moldoveanu, who took over the business from his father last year. His father was already the only shareholder of the company at the moment of stepping down from the lead of the company.

“With the transition to the new generation, 2017 was the year of changes. We started a rebranding nine months ago that it is still undergoing, we have a new logo, a new online platform and also new offices for the headquarters”, says Moldoveanu. The company sustained the development over the years with their own funds, without having to take loans from the banks.

Nordic Food is guided by five fundamental values: Responsibility, Integrity, Innovation, Adaptability and Optimism. Company rebranding has preserved its values ​​and mission to bring joy to consumers at every meal, but came with a new approach, tailored to new ones trends. The most important element of the rebranding process was the change of visual identity, applied across the group. That meant new websites, a new headquarters in the North area Capital, new equipment, cars, cards, business cards, etc. Through all these changes, with a strong impact on organizational culture, we want to be as close as possible to the needs of our customers Romania and offer them the premium products they want”, explained Moldoveanu.

Organizational changes have kept Nordic Food’s upward trend in terms of evolution financial position of the company. Thus, in 2017, the turnover reached 241 million lei, 5% higher than in 2016.

While 2017 was the year of organizational change, 2018 comes with news on the expansion of the Nordic business. Recently, Nordic Food acquired Dupont, one of its main competitors in the distribution of French pastry-confectionery products in HoReCa. From now on, through Nordic Food, products that were part of the Dupont portfolio will be distributed nationwide to confectioners and confectioners.

At the same time, another important point on the list of actions carried out in 2018 is the investment in the development of Nordic employees.

„This is a year full of opportunities for Nordic Food employees. They will become accustomed to the new changes and at the same time will learn new things because we will invest in their development. I think that the greatest wealth of a company is people, so in 2018, besides the projects we have at work, the focus is also Nordic employees”, says Moldoveanu.

The company will also create a new customer service. With a 150,000-euro investment, the new Warehouse Management System application, to be implemented over a three-month period, will help automate and fully manage all reception, storage, and delivery activities. More specifically, with the new customer-specific application, all operations in the warehouse, from reception, to expiry management, to product quality management, to delivery, will be optimized.

Among the brands brought by Nordic Food there are Rio Mare, Wudy, Alrpo, Costa d’Oro, Heinz, Cirio and Ulala.

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Aurel Dragan | 27/03/2024 | 17:32
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