Prospective Consolidation of Juice, Water, Alcohol, and Beer Production

The business empire of Bosnian entrepreneur Svjetlan Stanić, which consists of seven companies, can be briefly divided into two main activities (distribution and beverage production) and two domestic markets (BiH and Hrvatska), all of which are interwoven in terms of ownership, production, and distribution. The headquarters of his four companies are located in BiH, while in Croatia, the headquarters of Stanić Grupe (in Split) and the companies Maraska (in Zadru) and Stanić Beverages, which until last summer was based in Zagreb’s Žitnjak, have since moved to a new representative space in the Cibona business tower.

Svjetlan Stanić is the sole owner of Stanić Grupe, which is the official owner of Stanić Beveragesa, a company that owns one hundred percent of the shares in Stanić Beverages Kreševo, in Svjetlan Stanić’s hometown in BiH, and 98.75 percent of Maraska’s shares. Stanić’s companies in Croatia achieved a total of just over 63 million euros in business revenue in 2024, with Stanić Beverages contributing 35.7 million euros, marking a growth of as much as 52 percent compared to the previous year. The total revenue of Stanić Beverages was about half a million euros higher, amounting to 36.2 million euros.

Apparent Revenue Decline

However, when looking at the financial performance data of Stanić Beverages from 2020 to 2024 on the Poslovna Hrvatska service, it turns out that the company achieved about 6.7 million euros less total revenue in 2024 than the year before, and moreover, that it had a total revenue lower than in 2022. However, as explained by the company, this is an apparent decline in revenue resulting from a change in accounting standards, as the company, given its business growth and size, transitioned from local accounting standards to MSFI (International Financial Reporting Standards) during 2024, which affected the way revenue is recognized.

Specifically, for part of the assortment, primarily Maraska’s, which is distributed through Stanić Beverages, it is no longer possible to report the total sales value as revenue, but only the realized margin is recognized. This has reduced nominal revenue by approximately 21 million euros compared to the previous reporting method. At the same time, the company began production and sale of a range of waters for the Slovenian market in 2024, which partially compensated for the change in methodology, so the real difference compared to previous years is about seven million euros.

Regarding the financial results of Stanić Beverages in the past year, the company has not yet disclosed the final result as the audit is still ongoing, only stating that according to ‘preliminary data, 2025 marked stable export growth, further expansion of distribution of existing brands, and integration of new production and distribution projects.’

One Third of Capacity Still Free

Stanić, who built his business empire on distribution, first attempted to enter beverage production by acquiring the Slovenian Fructal, but his plans were thwarted by the Serbian Nectar. His next opportunity arose two years later, in 2013, when he had better luck. For a then very high price of 45 million euros, he purchased the already established juice brands Juicy and TO from Jamnice, then part of Agrokor, along with the juice bottling plant in Jastrebarsko, which was the first step in the planned development of the group towards its own production and distribution of beverages, and also the beginning of Stanić Beverages’ operations.

Since the acquired bottling plant in Jastrebarsko had modest capacities, Stanić’s next step in 2015 was to invest around 12 million euros in opening a Juicy juice production factory in Kreševo. A new round of investment in modernization and increasing the capacity of that factory to 50 million liters per year followed five years ago, simultaneously with Stanić Beverages entering the iced tea category.

Finally, the year before last, an investment of nearly 13 million euros expanded the production segment from two to four production lines for juice in glass, brick, and PET packaging at the Jastrebarsko bottling plant, whose capacity is now one hundred million liters per year. This has enabled the company to develop a larger number of new products and new packaging. The modernization has also responded to demands for sustainable production and responsible behavior towards nature. For example, Juicy is the world’s first juice with an inseparable cap made from one hundred percent certified recycled plastic, and the new production line allows for packaging made from 70 percent plant materials.

Stanić Beverages and Maraska reached a production volume of one hundred million liters last year, which means that without further investments in production, there are available capacities for at least another 50 million liters. Last year’s production volume was achieved 95 percent in its own facilities, while the remainder, primarily related to the can segment, comes from contract manufacturing in collaboration with the Serbian company Terra Production. The production lines in Kreševo and Jastrebarsko are not intended for the same assortment but complement each other. Kreševo directly supplies the BiH market and third countries, while part of the juices, primarily Juicy Fruits, is taken by Stanić Beverages for the markets of Croatia and EU countries.

Merger Not Yet Formalized

– After establishing the base, i.e., modernizing all production lines, our key long-term focus remains on premiumization and export, as we believe our brands have the potential for significantly stronger global positioning – state Stanić Group, which equally applies to Stanić Beverages and Maraska, where, due to the development of new products and packaging, the installation of a new line for bottling strong alcoholic beverages is underway.

Maraska, which Stanić acquired from the Široki Brijeg-based Mepas in 2022, is still formally a separate company, although its business activities are already firmly managed from Stanić Group. As Svjetlan Stanić told us in an interview for Lider five years ago, it is only a matter of time before Stanić Group stops treating Maraska’s brands and Juicy separately, as it will be one company that has both non-alcoholic and strong alcoholic beverages in its portfolio. So far, significant progress has been made in this regard, but the merger has not yet been formalized.

In the same context, the Bihać Brewery, which Stanić acquired in the summer of the year before last, is likely to find itself in the near future, as it fits perfectly into Stanić’s business vision with its production capacities and assortment. The Bihać Brewery has not yet stepped outside the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but given that Stanić’s two previous acquisitions in the beverage production segment were in Croatia, where business unification is increasingly taking place, it is quite likely that this company will also become part of a single beverage production company, especially since the Bihać Brewery has high-quality natural spring water in its portfolio in addition to premium beer brands. The installed production capacity of that brewery is 250 thousand hectoliters per year, and production takes place on five lines with the possibility of bottling in glass and PET packaging, cans, and barrels.

Sola and Zala Accelerated Export Growth

The export of Stanić Beverages is growing at high rates year after year. In the last five-year period for which data is available, the value of exports increased by 460 percent, from 2.3 million euros in 2020 to 12.7 million euros in 2024. The flagship of the company’s exports is the Juicy brand, which is present in as many as 22 countries worldwide, including, for over a decade, the premium HoReCa channel in the United Arab Emirates. Thanks to good connections in that country, Stanić Group last year secured a distribution contract for Maraska’s Maraschino liqueur with one of the largest local distributors of strong alcoholic beverages, which aligns with the Group’s strategy aimed at increasing exports to non-core markets.

Although in recent years Stanić Beverages has increasingly expanded distribution beyond Europe, its key export markets are BiH, Serbia, and Slovenia. One of the most important reasons for the exceptionally high jump, nearly doubling, in export value in 2024 compared to the previous year is that the company Nika Bev (based in Slovenia and owned by Stanić’s daughter Nina Christine Stanić) acquired well-known Slovenian brands of non-alcoholic beverages Sola and Zala from the Laško Union brewery in 2023. Juices and tonics under those brands will be produced in Stanić’s bottling plants and exported to Slovenia starting in 2024.

These contracts were made possible by Stanić’s long-standing successful partnership with the owner of Laško Union, the company Heineken. Stanić has been the exclusive distributor of Heineken for BiH since 1995, and since 2003, based on that, he also obtained distribution rights for BiH for the brands of Karlovačka Brewery when it entered Heineken’s ownership. For the same reason, in 2016, Stanić expanded his cooperation with Heineken to include the distribution of brands from two Slovenian breweries, Union and Pivovarna Laško (which were later merged into Laško Union), which Heineken also acquired, and since 2018, Stanić Beverages BiH has become a contract bottler of Sola and Zala beverages for the markets of Croatia, Serbia, and BiH. Thus, when Heineken decided to remove the assortment of juices and tonics from the Laško Union portfolio, the Stanić family was already prepared to take them over.

According to data we received from Stanić Group, of the one hundred million liters of produced beverages last year, 20 million liters went to export markets, and if we consider only the bottling plant in Jastrebarsko, more than 50 percent of production ended up in exports.

In Two Years Without Three Directors

The expansive growth through strategic acquisitions and organic activities in the beverage production segment has its price, which is most reflected in the final business result. In the five-year period (ending in 2024), Stanić Beverages invested a total of 96 million kuna in new fixed assets, resulting in approximately 8.5 million euros in accumulated losses during that time. Only in 2024 did the company emerge from losses, but with just a symbolic profit of 28 thousand euros.

The growth in production volume logically led to an increase in the number of employees at Stanić Beverages by more than 30 percent in 2024 (to 136) compared to the previous year. Along with a simultaneous increase in the average net salary from 1157 euros to 1337 euros, personnel costs skyrocketed by 57 percent in just one year!

In such circumstances, in the last two years, three managers have resigned from the executive management of Stanić Beverages. The first to say ‘goodbye’ was Zoran Mabić, who left just over two years ago to settle in as a director at Lesaffre Adriatic. For a few months, Jerko Tvrdić temporarily replaced him in the top position at Stanić Beverages until Ivan Čevra took over, who came from the position of president of the Jamnica plus management. Čevra left three months ago, and Stanić Beverages still does not have a new director.