Germany's Edeka Minden-Hannover has reported sales growth of 6.6%, to around €12.0 billion, in its 2023 financial year, amid challenging market conditions.
The retailer faced challenges in the form of cost pressure, inflation, and limited product availability last year, it said.
Board spokesperson Mark Rosenkranz added, “Nevertheless, as a cooperative group, we worked hard together, clearly pursued our strategic growth course and secured our market position.
“Our attractive and strongly regionally oriented product mix, as well as the continuous sharpening of our value for money offering, contributed to us being able to end 2023 successfully.”
Annual Highlights
In 2023, Edeka Minden-Hannover handed over 54 stores from its central management operation to independent retailers.
Currently, it has approximately 629 active independent retailers within the company, of which 564 are cooperative members.
The retailer invested approximately €542 million in store renovation, an environmentally friendly truck fleet with bio-LNG as fuel, logistics, digitalisation, and implementing new technologies into its production operations.
A majority of this investment, amounting to around €300 million, was allocated for new store openings and renovation projects. The group added 76,000 square metres of sales space to its network during the year.
Emissions Reduction
Elsewhere, the company reduced its CO2 emissions by 10% in 2023 compared to the previous year.
This was mainly driven by the conversion of its truck fleet to bio-LNG, the renewal of its cooling systems, the switch to natural refrigerants, and the implementation of targeted energy monitoring.
Edeka Minden-Hannover added that it installed charging stations for electric vehicles at around 100 retail locations during the year.
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