REWE Group Strengthens its Position in German Food Trading

COlogne, 03.04.06

REWE and Penny: two strong brands in the core business – Converting more than 2,600 supermarkets all at once – New quality offensive

With a strong, newly designed “REWE” brand covering move than 2,600 supermarkets and with a strengthened “Penny” discount store brand, REWE Group is set to continue expanding its position as the second-largest food trader in Germany. This was the message stressed by Dr. Achim Egner, REWE Group CEO, at the annual press conference in Cologne on Monday, April 3. A total of 260 new store openings nationwide were announced for the current year. The number three in European food trading managed to increase its turnover to 30 billion euros in Germany alone for the 2005 fiscal year.

“We will continue on the course towards more growth in 2006. The conversion of the REWE and miniMAL supermarkets and the toom and Petz hypermarkets to the new ‘REWE’ marketing brand will give these full-range stores a boost in sales in the second half of the year”, Egner said confidently. The organisational cornerstone for this had already been laid with a comprehensive structural reform of sales and marketing in Germany. The Group will invest 30 to 40 million euros in rebranding the stores alone. The introduction of the brand will go hand-in-hand with the development of a new and future-oriented marketing concept for the supermarkets and hypermarkets.

The quality of the foods sold will play a much larger role in the future. “I would like for consumers to come to appreciate quality much more quickly in general. We have now reached the point in Germany where food – the thing we depend on most of all – seems to have an only marginal importance”, Egner said. REWE Group plans to design its product range, where high-quality own-label products will play a larger role, and its supermarket concept so as to promote this rethinking process among consumers. “We want and plan to offer consumers safe, healthy, fresh and diverse foods to tempt to their appetites, in the truest sense of the word”, said the REWE CEO. This will include a further expansion of the organic product range under the Füllhorn brand, which was a trendsetter when REWE Group first launched it nearly 20 years ago.

On the growing discount store market in Germany, REWE Group will continue to expand the position of Penny as the most innovative German discounter. With customer-friendly opening hours from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., EC card payments, the fresh meat selection packaged for direct purchase, freshly baked breads and sales of newspapers and magazines, Penny is in many ways a pioneer in this market segment. The nationwide chain of around 2,000 stores will be enhanced and optimised with the addition of 120 new openings in 2006. Over the last several years, more than 1,000 outmoded locations were either closed or replaced by new stores. This major effort had since paid off in improved turnover per store.

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REWE GROUP-Corporate Communications
Tel.: 0221 - 149-1050
E-Mail: presse(at)rewe-group.com

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