Carrefour Belgium has announced that it is launching a new online sales platform for local products. The announcement makes Carrefour the first major retailer in Belgium to open up its online sales platform to local producers in order for them to access a new demographic. Shoppers simply shop as before via the retailer's 'Carrefour Drive' service, and after choosing a store at which they want to do their shopping, they can access local products.Source: esmmagazine.com
Portugal’s Continente partners with SendEAT for swift home delivery
Portuguese hypermarket and supermarket chain Continente has entered the home delivery market in partnership with local company SendEAT in order to respond efficiently to the last-minute needs of customers. Continente is promising delivery in 40 minutes or less. It will deliver a range of products including food, drinks, toiletries, baby products and household cleaning items. The first phase of test runs are being carried out in Porto and the delivery service is expected to expand throughout the nation in the near future.Source: esmmagazine.com
Russian discounter to expand to Romania
Russian hard discounter Svetofor has announced plans to launch in Romania under the Mere banner, with the aim of opening 100 stores in the next two years. According to Andrei Filip, procurement manager at Torgservice RM, which represents Svetofor’s business in Romania, the first store will be opened in September at Snagov, around 40 kilometres north of Bucharest, to be followed by another store in Brasov in the same month.Source: esmmagazine.com
Coles supermarket to open 120 vegan and health-focused convenience stores across Australia
Coles, one of Australia’s leading supermarkets, is developing new shopping experiences and items to cater to a healthier, more plant-based customer demographic. The giant retailer has decided to open 120 boutique convenient stores within the next few years. The new concept, called Project 535, will focus on healthy grab-and-go items (including vegan options) and a newly designed produce section. Project 535 stores will be strategically located in high-density urban areas, capitalizing on the young professionals who tend to reside in these metropolitan areas. This Millennial generation has also been accredited for popularizing the habit of plant-based eating. Coles plans to offer this targeted consumer market a more accessible shopping experience and provide them with the healthy, vegan, and artisan foods they crave.Source: livekindly.co
Tesco Central Europe partners with supplier for new food-to-go range
Tesco rolled out a private label fresh food-to-go range across its central European operations in June 2018. The move is part of Tesco’s strategic priority to overhaul its private label range. This was done in partnership with supplier, Hilton Food Group, which built a food processing facility in Poland. The range includes six types of baguettes, sandwiches, salads and pizzas and two types of wraps. The range will be placed in chillers near store entrances, and target the breakfast, snack, and lunch food-to-go missions.Source: retailanalysis.igd.com
France: LEDs lighten the load for Auchan
Auchan, the second largest French food retailer, has included Nualight lighting in a move to install glass doors on all its chiller cabinets. The retailer has recently embarked on the energy saving initiative to add doors to all open vertical chillers in all its hypermarkets throughout France. Aware that the addition of doors can create dark spots across the face of the products on display, Auchan saw their refrigeration refurbishment as an opportunity to install LED lighting.Source: coolingpost.com
Australia: Woolworths launches 3.0 store
Woolworths has opened a latest supermarket in Brisbane, which builds on learnings from its Marrickville store opening in Sydney in early 2018. The new stores, known as Woolworths 3.0, has a similar design, as well as many features that we have seen at Marrickville. There is a full range of counters, including a bakery, fishmongers, butchery, deli, hot food, plus a new cheese cave. With shoppers welcomed to the store by a strong range of locally produced fresh fruit and vegetables.Source: retailanalysis.igd.com
E.Leclerc installs propane refrigerated ‘click & collect’ lockers in France
EPTA France announced that it has installed 77 ‘click and collect’ refrigerated lockers for the French supermarket giant E.Leclerc in one location in Anglet (near Biarritz) in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region (southwestern France). ‘Click & Collect’ allows supermarket customers to order their shopping online and easily collect it from an external pick-up station – such as a train station, supermarket car park, petrol station, bus stop or airport. These 77 refrigerated and frozen food individual pick up lockers, by the Italian manufacturer EPTA which they call EPTABricks, use R290 as the main refrigerant. Source: hydrocarbons21.com
Carrefour acquires organic retailer in France
To support its aim of generating €5.0bln in sales from organic products, announced as part of its 2022 Transformation Plan, Carrefour has acquired an eight store organic specialist based in southwest France, So.bio. Carrefour announced the acquisition of So.bio, noting how the brand had ‘forged close links with local and regional producers to offer the best choice at an attractive price’. As part of its omnichannel strategy and cross promotion of its brands across its various channels, Carrefour said it would expand So.bio’s store base, while also allowing shoppers to buy organic products online through Greenweez or in its own stores as part of its growing shop-in-shop strategy.
Source: retailanalysis.igd.com
To support its aim of generating €5.0bln in sales from organic products, announced as part of its 2022 Transformation Plan, Carrefour has acquired an eight store organic specialist based in southwest France, So.bio. Carrefour announced the acquisition of So.bio, noting how the brand had ‘forged close links with local and regional producers to offer the best choice at an attractive price’. As part of its omnichannel strategy and cross promotion of its brands across its various channels, Carrefour said it would expand So.bio’s store base, while also allowing shoppers to buy organic products online through Greenweez or in its own stores as part of its growing shop-in-shop strategy.Source: retailanalysis.igd.com
Publix and Starbucks are partnering up as the grocery chain plans to add four in-store coffee stations to South Florida locations, NBC Miami reports. Several Florida locations with coffee stations are already in existence, including in Miami Beach. New locations in areas like Miami Shores, Miami and Fort Lauderdale are coming soon, according to the Publix site. Source: palmbeachpost.com
CAN: Sobeys opening discount locations in Winnipeg
Winnipeg will be gaining a new grocery shopping experience after Sobeys Inc. announced that it would be introducing two discount grocery stores to the city. Set to open in the spring of 2019, Sobeys’ discount grocery store, FreshCo, will replacing two Winnipeg Safeway locations at 500-1615 Reagent Ave., and 920 Jefferson Ave., Sobeys announced the new FreshCo stores, in order to meet a growing demand for competitive food prices, will offer the lowest prices in Winnipeg, making for an easy shopping experience of high-quality products.Source: winnipegsun.com
Amazon grocery sales surge 40% in 2Q
Data shows that Amazon second-quarter grocery sales came in at $650mln, up 40% year over year. The report, released by One Click Retail, also revealed that the eCommerce giant held 18% of U.S. online grocery sales since 2017, the largest share of any single retailer. In fact, Amazon’s current share of the online grocery space has now doubled that of its closest competitor. That growth comes with “nearly every category attracting more and more grocery shoppers to Amazon,” according to report author Jacob Porter, director of One Click’s global marketing.Source: pymnts.com
US: Walmart to pilot robotics for grocery ecommerce picking
Walmart is partnering with Alert Innovation to pilot an in-store robotic picking system for grocery ecommerce orders. The Alphabot technology is to be piloted at a supercenter in Salem, New Hampshire. The technology, which has been developed specifically for Walmart, will be housed in a 20,000 sq ft extension connected to the store. This will also serve as a dedicated grocery pickup point. The Alphabot technology will automatically bring items from storage to store associates who will consolidate the items in the order. Most grocery products offered in-store will be fulfilled through this system, although Walmart’s personal shoppers will continue to select produce and other fresh products.Source: retailanalysis.igd.com