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Italian supermarket chain Esselunga has also joined Swiss purchasing alliance Epic Partners, just days after French cooperative Système U. The group, founded by the German Edeka chain, is gaining weight in Europe.
Stronger together
Earlier this week, Système U (the fourth largest supermarket chain in France) had also joined Epic Partners, the Geneva-based retail alliance founded by German market leader Edeka. Now Esselunga, the number four in Italy, is also joining forces with the alliance, according to French trade magazine LSA and its German peers Lebensmittel Zeitung.
This gives the alliance increased weight. Its other members include Picnic (Netherlands), Migros (Switzerland), Biedronka (Poland), Jerónimo Martins (Portugal), ICA (Sweden) and Magnit (Russia). All of these are supermarket chains that are strong in their home market, but hardly develop any international operations. As such, they do not compete with each other and together are stronger against the FMCG multinationals.
It remains to be seen, however, how Epic Partners will continue to relate to Everest, the buying combination that Edeka set up in Amsterdam with online supermarket Picnic. Both are led by Gianluigi Ferrari, the former top executive of AgeCore, the retail alliance whose members include Belgian Colruyt (Edeka left that alliance in 2021 out of dissatisfaction with its operation). Epic would rather focus on ‘on top’ conditions with major suppliers, Everest on product sourcing. Système U is also a member of Everest, the question is what the other Epic members will do.
