Netto (store)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other supermarket chains with the same name, see Netto (Les Mousquetaires) and Netto Marken-Discount.

Netto
Type	Private
Genre	Supermarket
Founded	Copenhagen, Denmark
Headquarters	Køge Stavenhagen Pontefract Kobylanka Falkenberg
Area served	Europe
Industry	Retail
Parent	Dansk Supermarked Group
Slogan	Discount with Bite! Smart Shopping

Netto is a Danish based chain of discount supermarkets. Netto is owned by the Dansk Supermarked Group, which in turn is owned by A.P. Møller-Mærsk Group and F. Salling. The first Netto store opened on Godthåbsvej in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1981.

Netto has stores in the following countries:

Country	Since	Stores
Denmark	1981	371+
Germany	1990	230+
United Kingdom	1990	150+
Poland	1995	97+
Sweden	2002	76+

Contents 1 Denmark 2 Germany 3 UK 4 Poland 5 Sweden 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Denmark

The first Netto store opened in Denmark in Copenhagen in 1981. At first the items sat in boxes and on pallets, but the chain quickly expanded, and the service level increased as well. Today there are 371 stores.

Netto is still a discount store.

[edit] Germany

In September 1990 Netto started an internationalisation process, and Germany was the second country to get Netto. The first store was opened in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania not long after the Fall of the Wall. Netto has since expanded in the states of Brandenburg, Berlin, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, and there are a total of 230 stores today.

In Germany, a second chain of stores, called Netto Marken-Discount and owned by EDEKA has also been in operation since 1984. It currently has more than 1,000 sales outlets in most West German states. The two chains are unrelated to each other.

[edit] UK

Netto was opened in the United Kingdom in Leeds in 1990. Netto was primarily expanded in mid England, and there are stores in London, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Wakefield Sunderland and Wigan, among other cities. Today there are at least 150 stores in the country. The Netto store at Shenley Church End (a suburb of Milton Keynes), was destroyed by fire - believed to be arson - in February 2004. A fire also broke out in Keighley's Netto in 1999. They have now both been rebuilt, at an estimated cost of around £500,000. A massive Fire also destroyed the Netto at New Lodge, Barnsley, South Yorkshire on 24th January 2007. Many prices are very similar to wholesale prices, and so there are many bulk buyers. To enforce fairness to all shoppers, many offers are limited to 6 per person. Netto is also referred to because the hard-wearing bags cost more than a tin of beans.

The British headquarters of Netto is in the ex-mining village of South Elmsall.

One of the main differences between Netto and other 'Hard-Discounting' stores such as Aldi and Lidl is that it stocks recognised brand-name products at low prices, as well as exclusive Netto stockists and imported goods. This makes it more acceptable to the general British public.

[edit] Poland

The first Netto store in Poland opened in Szczecin. The expansion of the branch is concentrated in the north western part of the country from Szczecin to Gdańsk, and through the country to Bydgoszcz, Poznań, and Zielona Góra, and the country has 97 stores today.

[edit] Sweden

The Swedish part of Netto was founded in 2002 as a joint venture between Dansk Supermarked and ICA called Netto Marknad AB. The co-operation was granted by the European Commission in 2001. The headquarters were established in Halmstad in March and the first store was opened in Trelleborg on May 8. A week later two stores where opened in Lund. In the beginning, Netto kept their stores in the Götaland region.

In August 2004 the first stores in Stockholm were opened. The head office was announced to be moved to Falkenberg in October 2003.

The Swedish Netto branch is expanding rapidly. As of 2003 there were 28 stores. One year later there were 58 stores and as of February 2006 the store count is 74.

At the end of 2006 ICA announced it was pulling out of the joint venture, reducing its stake from 50% to 5%. 21 stores in the Stockholm and Västerås regions would transfer to ICA ownership with most being rebranded to ICA's own formats during 2007. The reasons for the change were problems in supplying the stores based on Netto's more southern base as well as ICA's desire to focus investment on its own formats.

[edit] See also

• List of supermarkets

[edit] References

• Information regarding the locations of the Danish owned Netto
• Information regarding ICA's withdrawal from Netto in Sweden

[edit] External links

• Danish homepage
• German homepage
• English homepage
• Swedish homepage
• Polish homepage