Top 5 food retail networks

Germany’s Kaufland was the only player in the ranking of the five biggest players in modern food retail to register a profit leap last year, on a market where the crisis ate into companies’ profit margins, according to the data operators reported to the Trade Registry. In the absence of organic sales increases, major retailers cut their profit margins to 2-3% last year from 3-5% in 2008, with the steepest decline being posted on the cash & carry store segment, viewed as the most mature segment of the market. Last year, cash & carry stores were still more profitable than hypermarkets. At the top of the ranking of profits per operational store is Selgros, a network operated by Germany’s Rewe, with almost 1.4m euros, followed by Metro. Overall, the 108 stores operated by the top four retailers that are not loss making generated 95m-euro profit or 0.9m euros each in 2009. In terms of sales, the five biggest store networks on the market handle more than half of modern retail, a market put at 7-8bn euros. Balance sheet data show the five companies last year derived 4.7bn-euro turnover, down 5% from 2008.