Non-food director Dieter Struye leaves Colruyt Group

Belgian retailer Colruyt Group no longer has a director non-food, RetailDetail learns from reliable sources. Dieter Struye had headed the Dreamland, Dreambaby, Bike Republic and The Fashion Society chains since February 2018, and will not be replaced.

Consolidating bike market

Struye’s tenure at Colruyt Group comes to an end after almost five years: in February 2018, he was appointed director non-food to head the Dreamland and Dreambaby chains. He encouraged Colruyt Group to discontinue its separate non-food web shop Collishop and launched the retailer in the consolidating bicycle market with the acquisition of Fiets! – which was renamed Bike Republic and is working on solid expansion.

Before joining Colruyt Group, Struye had worked at Unilever for more than a decade, then became sales director at Danone, and general manager at DIY chains Brico and Brico Planit of the Maxeda DIY Group. Now he has to look for a new challenge.

Increasing competition

RetailDetail contacted Dieter Struye by phone, but he did not wish to comment. It is clear that he was working in a difficult context: Colruyt Group has been struggling with its profitability for some time. In both supermarkets and non-food, margins are under pressure and competition is increasing. Certainly Dreamland and Dreambaby are seeing pressure from the growth of e-commerce.

The retailer did see more shifts in its executive committee last year: operational director Marc Hofman retired and was replaced by directors Jo Willemyns and Stefan Goethaert. Recently, Colruyt also said goodbye to its marketing director Guy Elewaut.