Kaufland switches to purchasing alliance Agecore

Kaufland is changing its procurement partner: the German distributor is leaving EMD to join Agecore, seeking to join forces with other European retailers.

“The ideal match”

The fierce competition in the European food retail continues behind the scenes. At the level of purchasing alliances, which retailers enter to buy more cheaply together, European Marketing Distribution (EMD) is now losing Kaufland to Agecore. Founded in 2015 by Edeka, Agecore currently includes Belgian Colruyt, Italian Conad, Spanish Eroski and Swiss Coop.

As a subsidiary of Lidl owning group Schwarz, Kaufland says the sourcing structures of the other Agecore members are an ideal fit for them. “We cooperate with companies that also have short decision-making channels“, Divisional Director Purchasing International Joerg Ossenberg-Engels told Lebensmittel Zeitung. Besides long-term supplier partnerships, the alliance’s activities also focus on topics such as sustainability, digitisation, AI and brand value.

Supermarket companies can hardly do without European partners nowadays. Procurement coalitions have become so powerful that they attracted the attention of the European Commission last year. However, it found no evidence of anti-competitive effects.