Carrefour France wants to outsource "ethnic stores" to Moroccan franchise partner

Carrefour is said to be in talks with its Moroccan franchise partner Label’Vie regarding managing some of its so-called ethnic stores: these are supermarkets in neighbourhoods and suburbs with a large Muslim community, in which the French retailer is struggling to make a profit.

Early-stage

According to Morrocan financial news channel Le Boursier, Carrefour recently carried out a market segmentation of its French stores and found that these ethnic stores are unprofitable. This would have led to a plan of entrusting the management of the supermarkets in question to a party that knows the specific expectations and needs of its customers better. It is not known precisely how many stores are involved.

Carrefour would have already proposed the idea to its Moroccan franchise partner Label’Vie. Both parties have been in talks since then to investigate the feasibility of the matter.

An (anonymous) manager of the Moroccan retailer has confirmed the talks. He does not think the project could be realised in the short term. “We have only just started the talks. I think this project will take at least two years, considering all the procedures that need to be carried out, the preliminary negotiations with the employees, the unions, the accountants…”.