French group Intermarché has announced that it is entering a distribution partnership with local firm Francap, which operates the G20, Coccinelle and Coccimarket banners in France.
More specifically, Francap will entrust Intermarché with the negotiation process for national and international FMCG products, excluding private label, from 1 January, 2019.
Francap acts for 14 regional distributors and more than 4,200 independent stores, and posted a €2.3 billion annual turnover for 2017, a figure dwarfed by the almost €30 billion turnover that Intermarché posted last year.
The agreement sees both partners remain totally independent and maintaining their own distinct pricing and discount strategies.
French Market Industry Concentration
Still, it is a highly symbolic partnership for Intermarché that found itself isolated in early April, after Casino Group announced a joint-purchasing agreement with Auchan and terminated its previous agreement with Intermarché.
A combined marketshare of 16% will give Francap and Intermarché a bit of room to manoeuvre, in the context of concentration in the French market.
Last week, Casino announced the creation of a centralised purchasing body with European retailers Metro, Schiever and Auchan, named Horizon
Carrefour - besides its new long-term agreement with Tesco on the international side of things - announced a five-year buying partnership with Système U in mid-June.
In a recent interview with French publication LSA, Intermarché chairman Thierry Cotillard acknowledges the group's size difference compared to Francap, but said he also sees common grounds between the two structures. He commented that they were "brought together by a spirit of independence and proximity to their local customer base".
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Matthieu Chassain. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
