Soft discounter Leader Price has opened its first store in Italy, in Como, with two more to follow this week in Voghera (near Pavia) and Borgo Satollo (Brescia).
The retailer is planning to open 20 stores by the end of 2018, and as many as 100 in the next two years, with the end-goal of reaching 450 stores in five years.
The store network will consist of directly owned, affiliated and franchised stores, but growth will also come from acquisitions of small and medium national grocery retailers.
Leader Price Italia is a joint venture set up in 2016 between France’s Geimex/Casinò and Italy’s Crai Secom in partnership with New Grieco, Fratelli Ibba, Ama Crai Est and Codè Crai Ovest.
Product Range
The assortment consists 80% of Italian and French private label products, while the remaining 20% are national brands. The banner focuses on convenience, fresh and new health trends and each store has a bakery and wine cellar.
Among the fresh products assortment, 80% are the result of collaboration with national suppliers, which are mostly local or neighbourhood producers. There are also 200 fruit and vegetable references and more than 400 in the frozen department.
The private label brands are Leader Price, Leader Price Bio (about 150 references) and SOOA (100 personal hygiene and care products).
According to the president of Leader Price Italia and Crai, Giangiacomo Ibba, the company’s strategy is to exploit the quality-price ratio offered by traditional Italian food and drinks.
Elsewhere, chief executive Mario Maiocchi said Leader Price Italia aims to penetrate the Italian market in qualitative and not quantitative terms, opening stores that can generate high performance in the short-term with careful analysis of the areas and locations that are targeted.
The discounter will have three store formats in Italy, one of 300-500 square meters, one of 600-800 square metres and one of 1,000-1200 square metres, with an average range of over 3,200 SKUs.
© 2018 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
