The French group continues to promote the proximity stores format with Carrefour Express and Carrefour Market. The first one is taking the Spanish market by storm with a franchising model. New stores were recently opened, on 31 October in Caceres and on 2 November in Bilbao. Meanwhile, Carrefour Market expanded the company's presence in Belgium.
Carrefour Express Caceres is the first of the firm's franchised supermarkets in the city. It gives employment to 14 people and has a surface of 135 m2. Another store was inaugurated in Herrera del Duque, Badajoz, last year. Besides these, the firm has other eight hypermarkets in Extremadura, giving employment to more than 3,600 people.
Carrefour, which inaugurated more than 30 franchised stores in Spain last year, uses the Express label for stores under the 700 m2 and Market for those between 800 and 2,000 m2.
The latter has boosted the firm's growth in Belgium. In this country, Carrefour has signed a contract with O'Cool for the renting of 13 stores that will adopt the Market concept. Twelve of the stores are located in Flanders and one in Wallonia. With this transaction, the French group will run 448 Carrefour Market stores in Belgium by the second half of 2013.
Source: Distribucionactualidad.com