Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed colleagues
Every year, the Association for the German Language selects a Word of the Year.
Out of thousands of nominations. It’s a word that has reverberated most in public discourse.
In 2023, it was “crisis mode”. That didn’t surprise me; we felt that too.
The effects of the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East, extreme weather events and natural catastrophes, supply chain uncertainty, price hikes across the board – the state of emergency has become permanent. Do we wish things were simpler? Of course we do. But it’s not our style to simply sit out the tough times.
We do what is in our cooperative DNA: Pitch in. Make a difference. Secure the future. This has been our remit for almost 100 years and we take it very seriously.
We have invested three billion euros in order to successfully develop our business segments further sharpen our competitive edge. That is significantly more than most other European commercial companies invest.
We have set the right priorities and can look back on a successful year thanks to our broad, stable positioning. Travel and Tourism in particular contributed to this, as did our international business. We owe this success above all to our team of 389,000 colleagues who give their best for REWE Group every day. Thank you for that!
What I know is that the way we handle global and regional crises will be crucial to our success in the years to come. As a cooperative, we invest almost all of our earnings in the company – that makes us strong – for the benefit of our customers, our retailers and our employees.
We will continue along this path. I am confident that we will master these challenging times together.
Merci.
