Organic retailer Alnatura has reported marginal sales growth of 1% in its report for the 2016/2017 financial year.
The company made a net profit of €770 million in the year leading up to 30 September 2017 and added 250 new employees to a total of 2,900 in the Alnatura workforce.
The company reported particularly high increases in sales through its trading partners, such as a 70% increase in Alnatura sales at Edeka stores and a 50% volume increase in sales of fresh produce. Alnatura sells its over 1,300 branded products through more than 14,200 partner branches in 13 European countries.
The company said it has developed its products to accommodate increasing changes in consumer habits over the last year. Its new products include alternative sweeteners, legume pasta, milk substitutes and fresh juices.
Last June, the company also reported having settled a two-year legal dispute with German retailers DM and Tegut after DM began replacing Alnatura products with its own organic private label line.
Store Expansion
Some 30 years after the opening of the first Alnatura supermarket in Mannheim, the company now operates a total of 126 outlets in 11 out of the 16 German states.
New openings included the company’s seventh organic supermarket in Hamburg, its 16th in Berlin, and its first in Lüneburg, near Hamburg.
The company said it plans to expand in eastern states of the country next year, in places such as Erfurt, Potsdam and Leipzig. In 2019, the retailer plans to open stores in Starnberg, Freilassing, Emmendingen, Mainz Zollhafen and in the east of Frankfurt.
The company said that each of its store openings is accompanied by a donation to a local project. The company reports having donated nearly €40,000 to local social or ecological initiatives in the 2016/2017 financial year, such as the federal environmental protection groups NABU and BUND, or kindergarten or neighbourhood projects.
Alnatura was recently ranked the ninth most popular brand in Germany, the only food company to make the top ten, according to a study by the brand management company Brandmeyer. Last year, it was nominated for 'Germany’s Most Sustainable Company’ award for the fourth time.
Darmstadt Campus
The construction of Alnatura’s new headquarters in Darmstadt is also underway. Having begun construction in the summer of 2016, the new headquarters will encompass an area of 55,000 square metres and will host around 500 employees.
In addition to the 13,500 square metres reserved for office space, the campus will include a children’s nature garden based on Waldorf educational principles, an organic vegetarian restaurant and a large outdoor area with garden spaces for lease.
"The symbiotic connection with the surrounding nature, the sustainable use of existing resources and a simple, near-natural aesthetics are central aspects of this extraordinary building project", said Alnatura founder and managing director Götz Rehn.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Kevin Duggan. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
