Pride and optimism. These are the words we would pick to sum up the feeling behind Conad‘s traditional year-end conference. Proud of the results achieved, even if still in a difficult market environment, the chain grew by 4.2%, bringing its turnover to 12.2 billion euro. Conad’s own brand exceeded 27%, while the group’s share reached 11.8%, strengthening its leadership in the supermarket sector, whose share rose to 19.8% (1.2 % more than in 2014). There’s optimism too. There are plans for investments worth 188 million euro in 2016, as well as to open 88 new stores and hire 880 new employees.
All this is matched by an increasingly strong commitment to communication. This year, Conad has invested a gross total of 36.5 million euro (46% of total advertising investment in large-scale food distribution) with a share of voice that is more than four times the chain’s market share.
The only thorn in the side is the liberalization of the market (especially in the pharmaceutical and fuel sectors) which proceeds extremely slowly. A suggestion to the Prime Minister, Mr. Renzi, “We must scrap to simplify modernization,” said Francesco Pugliese, CEO of the group, “The liberalization process is heading in this direction.”
Among the plans for the future is an 8 million euro investment in digital technology. It is aimed at increasing the integration between physical and virtual channels starting with the testing of online sales in a large city.
A second investment of 25 million euro is going to finance the birth of a new business specializing in takeaways and the launch of a Conad brand line (a crossover from food to non-food sectors), which meets the new needs of consumers interested in organic and vegan products.