Fashion

French group of department stores Auchan has opened a fresh food store named Arcimbo, next to their drive-through for picking up goods ordered online, in Villeparis (Seine-et-Marne). On offer are fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and fish and some other groceries and wine.

The Dutch retail group Ahold only made a profit of 158 million euro in the fourth quarter of 2012, a drop by no less than 42% compared to 2011. This massive downturn is mainly because of added pension expenses in the US and write-offs on American and Slovakian operations.

Belgian supermarket chain Delhaize has had an excellent 2012, as sales rose by 7.7% to 22.7 billion euro. Performances were especially good in South-Eastern Europe and Asia and the stronger dollar helped to improve the American results. Profits on the other hand dropped by 18% due to price wars and one-off expenses.

The famous Belgian Trappist beer Westvleteren has proven to be a huge commercial success in the United States as well. The first 15,000 boxes of Westvleteren ever to be sold officially on the American market were all sold in less than a day.

Unilever has announced a new logistics policy combining sustainable growth and clever savings. The world’s third largest producer of consumer goods wants to reduce its truck kilometres by 200 million kilometres each year – 1.3 times the distance from the earth to the sun.

Kellogg’s ventured into uncharted territory last month when it opened a very special temporary pop-up store, where customers could collect a sample of the new Special K Cracker Crisps for the ‘price’ of one tweet.

Both Tesco and Sainsbury’s announced their financial results for the first half of the year this week: Sainsbury’s has reasons to smile, while Tesco saw its profits decrease for the first time in nearly two decades. Meanwhile, Aldi and Lidl force Tesco into a defensive position that could be fatal for a company with a business formula that is not sufficiently distinctive.