OREANDA-NEWS. On 04 August 2009 was announced, that OJSC Krupskaya Confectionery Factory, a Russian chocolate company with a market leading position in St. Petersburg and Northwest Russia has signed up an agreement and started to handle sales and distribution of Pekar products in Northwest Russia.

Pekar and Krupskaya have signed an agreement, according to which sales and distribution of all products produced under Pekar brand in the future will be handled by Krupskaya through the Krupskaya distribution network.

Krupskaya has purchased some production assets of Pekar, however for the time being, these production assets remain available at the Pekar production site. Pekar will continue to produce the normal assortment of products, which will then run through the Krupskaya Sales and Distribution network.

Some of Pekar’s trademarks have also been transferred to Krupskaya. Since Krupskaya has Sales and Distribution responsibility, it is now appropriate for Krupskaya to develop the brand and promote it through advertising and in-store promotions. Such serious investments justify ownership of the trademarks themselves. This however has no impact on production of products themselves, which will continue to be handled by OAO Pekar at their facility.

The changes are mainly related to the sales and distribution of Pekar products that are planned to be fulfilled by Krupskaya distribution network which started on July 1. “Our target is to improve the sales level through more efficient Sales and Distribution, that allows customers a bigger choice of products, while transport costs are reduced, and frequency of deliveries to customers in Northwest Russia can be increased.” – says Philip Wegh, General Director of Krupskaya factory. – “This in turn should increase production levels. And it is OAO Pekar’s responsibility to continue producing the same high quality products as they always have”.

Now that Krupskaya takes over sales and distribution, there are approximately 40 sales and expedition area employees who became Krupskaya employees, since ownership of finished goods changes hands at the expedition area. However upstream production of wafer cakes and other products continues to be the responsibility of Pekar and its approximately 400 employees. With the exception of the expedition areas, the remainder of the production site remains under control of OAO Pekar. The here will be no change to the daily production operations.

The parties have agreed not to disclose the commercial terms of the signed agreement.