BULGARIAN NEWS

The canned vegetables category is one of the few that posts a growth, compared to one year ago. In the past 12 months it increased by 0.7% in volume and by 1.8% in value, shows data of Nielsen Bulgaria, presented in Progressive's column “In Focus”.The driving force of the growth are the large food stores, where the category grew in volume and value by 9% and 10.8%...

The Piccadilly and Carrefour supermarket chains participated in the food drive of the Bulgarian Food bank. On November 29 and 30 in selected Piccadilly supermarkets and the Carrefour hypermarkets were set up areas where the customers could leave packages of non-perishable packaged foods – rice, beans, flour, sunflower oil, etc. The products, gathered during the campaign will...

Carrefour Poland launched a project called "BIO Waste Management", under which a network of 22 hypermarkets and supermarkets recover fruits and vegetables unfit to be sold so that they can be re-used for composting purposes or the rehabilitation of urban green areas. In the first quarter of this year almost 350 tonnes of so-called "green waste" have been collected by the 22...

The Metro Group continues to pare its assets portfolio, with its latest move seeing it sell off its Makro Cash & Carry unit in Greece. The deal is the latest in a string of sales by the German group, as it focuses on core markets and core banners. Metro operates nine wholesale stores in the country, and is selling them to local retail group Sklavenitis for an enterprise...

Mercator has reported its nine month (9M) results for 2014: the company achieved sales of EUR 1.99 billion, a 3.6% decrease year-over year (y-o-y). The lower revenue was a result of exiting the Bulgarian and Albanian markets and the divestment of operations in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina to Konzum. The group reported operating profit of EUR 26 million, a 31.8%...

Auchan is trialing an automated car number plate recognition system in 29 of its petrol stations in Spain. Customers are no longer required to use their credit card but instead use a four digit PIN to complete the payment which is automatically linked to their bank account. Customers will then receive a text message confirming the transaction. The technology is certainly...

Carrefour has acquired Il Centro, a 17 stores supermarket chain operating in Tuscany, Italy. The chain had filed for bankruptcy and 100 jobs were threathened. Carrefour plans to invest some EUR 3.5 million in paying of its bad debt and refurbishing the stores. (www.kantarretailiq.com)  

Worldwide vodka sales fell by 1.1 per cent to 496.4 million cases in 2013, hit by continued declines in Eastern and Central Europe. However, the sector "continues to thrive" elsewhere, notably in the Americas and Asia-Pacific, where sales were up by 1.4 million and 1.5 million cases, respectively, according to a new Just-drinks/The IWSR report. The market research report...