"Roclip" Făgăraş, the only Romanian maker of dehydrated potato, beans, peas and soy flakes, posted losses of 375,149 lei in Q1 2010, after posting a profit of 5,034 lei in Q1 2009, as the company"s turnover dropped almost 50%, from 1.912 million lei to 1.062 million lei.
The total revenues of the Braşov based-company dropped by one third, from 1.512 million lei to 950,243 lei, whereas expenses decreased only by 12%, from 1.507 million lei to 1.322 million lei.
Virgil Mija, the main shareholder of "Roclip" Făgăraş, who owns 45%, had announced last year that the company had urgent need for a bank loan of 6-7 million Euros for retooling. In 2009, the company"s shareholders approved the renting part of its storage areas to other interested investors. "Those storage areas were used for the storage of potatoes, but we no longer need to store our own potatoes, because there are large warehouses in the area, which is why we have decided to rent part of our storage areas which are no longer needed for the manufacturing process", said Virgil Mija. He said that in the last two years, the company invested around two million Euros in retooling and distribution.