BULGARIAN NEWS

The owners of Bulgaria’s supermarket chain Piccadilly and the Carrefour franchise agreed to merge the two retail chains in Bulgaria.According to Dnevnik.bg, the two owners, the Bulgarian company AP Mart and Greek franchise of Carrefour, KMB Bulgaria, will establish a new joint venture.In this and next year the capital of the new company will be increased by BGN 46 M...

The penetration of the “biscuits” category is 96%, shows data of GfK Bulgaria. According to a research of the agency for the period August 2013 – July 2014, the average price per kilogramme grows year-on-year.Comparing the two periods, the frequency of purchase drops from 17 to 16 purchases per year in a household. The brand biscuits are still preferred to the retailers...

Russian retailer Magnit has opened its 8,000th store in the Chukhloma, Kostroma Region. The store is operated by the retailer and has a selling area of 351 square meters. It is the first Magnit store opened in a town with a population of 5,000 people. As of 30 September 2014, Magnit operated 25 distribution centers and 9,020 stores across 2,000 cities and towns in 7 federal...

Global holding Nestle will open a new pet food production plant in Poland in early 2015, the company said in a press release. The value of the investment is some PLN 300 million. The factory, located in Nowa Wieś Wrocławska in southwestern Poland, will initially employ 230 people. “Poland is the biggest market for pet food in Central and Eastern Europe,” said...

Tesco launched a low-cost tablet under its own brand op3n dott. Sales started on 5 November in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Following the UK launch of Hudl2 in October, Tesco has introduced its first tablet, smartphone and fitness band in Central Europe. Devices under the name op3n dott are supported by its global partners, such as Google and Intel. Op3n...

Significant growth opportunities lie ahead for convenience stores, which are now visited on average 12 times a month – more often than any other type of grocery format, according to findings from IGD’s Shopper Vista research. Half of shoppers now believe that it’s more convenient to shop around rather than buy everything under one roof, with the average...

Carlsberg has said it still expects to meet its targets for the fiscal full year, despite reporting a decline in profit for its third quarter. For the quarter, net profit was down 5% to 2.1bn kroner (€282m), while adjusted profit was down by 3.1% and adjusted operating profit was flat at 3.39bn kroner (€456m). Overall revenue rose by 4% to 18.1bn kroner (€2.4bn)...

Auchan has launched a new service, attached to its AuchanDrive stores in France, called Mag&Drive - a hybrid of in-store shopping and Click & Collect. Shoppers use a dedicated scanner, in-store, to choose their products (approximately 300) and add them to a virtual shopping basket. Shoppers can then collect their goods on the Drive ramp at the end of their in-store...