Carrefour Italia and Gruppo VéGé have signed an agreement to set up a new purchasing alliance for the large-scale retail sector in Italy.
AICUBE 4.0 will be one of the biggest purchasing centres in Italy, with a market share of 12.7%, representing around 5,256 grocery retail outlets and a total consumer turnover of more than €15.7 billion.
Gruppo VéGé and Carrefour Italia have agreed to collaborate for the next three years with no option of early withdrawal.
However, AICUBE 4.0 is open to adding other players from the retail sector.
Role Of The Centre
The new purchasing centre will define baseline agreements with principal common suppliers, identify synergies with mainstream distributor brands, and implement common policies for co-packers of premium distributor brands.
In addition, AICUBE 4.0 will share consumption trends and data with the industry.
According to Carrefour Italia’s Christophe Rabatel, "AICUBE 4.0 takes on board the potential of the previous aggregation, in particular, the focus on convenience and the enhancement of supply chains".
The new purchasing alliance represents an upgrade of AICUBE, an alliance of Carrefour Italia, Gruppo VéGé and Gruppo PAM, established in July 2018. Gruppo PAM left AICUBE in July 2020.
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.