French retail giants Carrefour and Coopérative U have formed a new European buying alliance, called Concordis.
Announced yesterday (7 July) in a joint statement, the partnership looks to boost “purchasing competitiveness of its partners by pooling volumes”.
The new alliance will be headquartered in Brussels.
Concordis will negotiate on purchase prices and provide "international services", the retailers said. It will also "engage with multinational suppliers of branded consumer goods" in European markets where Carrefour and Coopérative U are present.
The alliance is set to run for an initial six-years, starting from next year.
Concordis also looks to include other European retailers, with discussions already ongoing.
Alexandre Bompard, chairman and CEO of Carrefour, said: “Through this partnership, we are becoming the number one purchasing force in France - and equipping ourselves to become the leader at the European level.”
In their statement, the retailers added that the alliance looked to foster “fair and transparent relationships with suppliers, based on the mutual development of
business plans and with strong consideration for the overall balance of agri-food supply chains."
Dominique Schelcher, CEO of Coopérative U, said the new alliance: “challenges of the French retail market. It is built on a strong and ambitious partnership with Carrefour and is intended, in the long term, to welcome other European retail partners to further pool purchasing volumes.
"With Concordis, we will enhance our competitiveness in support of our
customers’ purchasing power."
Carrefour and Coopérative U alliance are to notify the French Competition Authority of the partnership by the end of July, and submitted the alliance for approval to both groups' governing bodies.
As part of the alliance, Carrefour and Coopérative U also said they plan to explore collaborate in private label products through "joint auctions on standard consumer goods", but will retain "full autonomy on their differentiated products".
Carrefour operates a network of over 15,000 stores across more than 40 countries, supported by a workforce of over 300,000 people. The group generated sales of €94.6bn ($111bn) in 2024.
Meanwhile, Coopérative U operates 1,800 stores including Hyper U, Super U, U Express, and Utile. It employs more than 75,000 people in France and around the world.
Carrefour has been involved with several buying alliances in the past.
In 2022, Carrefour and Louis Delhaize announced the ceasing of their buying alliance in Europe, with the latter subsequently moving to a a partnership with Intermarché, part of Les Mousquetaires group.
Carrefour also set up a buying partnership with Tesco in 2018, which came to a close in 2021. The "strategic alliance" involved “the joint purchasing of own-brand products and goods not for resale”.
