The Edeka association, with more than 11,000 shops and around 409,000 employees, the largest retailer in Germany, wants to remain steadfast in the dispute over the pricing of brand manufacturers.
The “greed” of international branded companies is not abating, said CEO Markus Mosa in Hamburg at the presentation of the annual financial statements. “And we can understand it even less than last year”, after all, a number of raw materials for detergents, for example, but also wheat, oils and fats have become cheaper again. Mosa said there will be a solution sooner or later, but in months rather than weeks. Edeka is currently offering market access to alternative providers and is also increasing its own brands.
Mars and Pepsi, among others, no longer deliver
“We currently have 17 companies that do not supply us,” said Mosa. He included consumer goods giants like Procter
Edeka itself has partially imposed an order freeze on four companies in order to increase the pressure. Because of the warehousing, however, this has no effect on the inventory in the shops, but is rather a warning shot. Mosa feels strengthened in his position by the study presented on Monday by the credit insurer Allianz-Trade. He had found that “excessive profit-taking” by food manufacturers had made a noticeable contribution to food inflation last year.
In this context, Mosa also criticized massive food speculation. With the first shot in Ukraine, wheat prices exploded. “I can’t imagine that there was any harvest at the end of February last year. All I know is snow and deep frost.” However, he assumes that everything will soon return to normal. The freight rates for import containers from Asia, for example, have already fallen by almost 90 percent. Then the claim must be that the purchase prices also drop.
Total sales in the Edeka group increased significantly
Although several companies have imposed a delivery stop and thus each forgo sales of several hundred million euros, total sales in the Edeka group last year increased by around 5.6 percent or 3.5 billion euros to 66.2 billion euros said Mosa. The approximately 3,500 self-employed merchants of the cooperative organization reportedly achieved around 36.5 billion euros in their shops. That is 1.8 billion euros more than in the previous year. In view of massively rising prices and high inflation, the discounter Netto in particular has increased. According to the information, sales there rose by 1.1 billion to 15.8 billion euros.
Edeka did not provide any information on the profits of the independent merchants. 395.7 million euros remained in the head office – 44.8 million more than in the previous year. The reason for the higher than forecast profit is the increased gross profit and higher income from investments in associated companies. Edeka lost 0.4 points in terms of market share, but remains the largest retailer in Germany with 21.7 percent. According to Mosa, the minus was largely offset by an increase of 0.3 points to eight percent in net. This was followed by Rewe with 16.2 percent, Aldi with 15.4 percent and Lidl with 10.9 percent.
