Carrefour : AICUBE rewrites the future of retail in Italy

Announcing the new AICUBE, an alliance of Carrefour Italy, VéGé Group and PAM Group. The alliance creates one of the biggest purchasing centres in Italy in terms of market share, with a total convenience offering that spans distributor and industry brands and promotes Italian SMEs.

Milan, 12 July 2018 - A major new player enters the Italian retail market, with a vocation for Italian SMEs and industry brands: introducing AICUBE, a purchasing centre formed by an alliance of Carrefour Italy, VéGé Group and PAM Group, three of the country's leading retailers in terms of market share.

A major new player in Italian food retailing

AICUBE (Associazione Imprese Internazionali Indipendenti) is a new purchasing alliance which draws on all the resources, prestige and customer service culture of three of Italy's leading retailers. The alliance is unveiled today in Terrazza Martini, Milan. Each of the partners has an equal share in the project, which will last for a minimum of three years. With a shared bargaining mandate, it applies exclusively to Italian territory. Other members from the retail sector may be welcomed into the alliance in the future.

AICUBE in numbers

AICUBE will be one of the biggest purchasing centres in Italy, with market share of 14.3% (source: Aicube based on GNLC Nielsen - February 2018). The alliance represents 5,179 sales outlets and has a presence in every Italian region, with total sales area of 3.15 million square metres and combined sales volume by consumption (including lead companies) of 16 billion euros (2017 data).

Why a new purchasing centre in Italy?

The strategic alliance between Carrefour Italy, VéGé Group and PAM Group brings a whole new reality to the Italian retail sector and lays the foundations for a phase of renewal which will benefit the whole market.

AICUBE gives its founding members a clear edge in a market that's increasingly oriented to digital and online platforms. And it immediately establishes itself as a quality commercial offering with advantageous conditions for the end client - and greater shelf exposure for brand products, as part of a strategy that pursues a logic with a whole other texture than discount.

The immediate objectives of the new purchasing centre are to define baseline agreements with the principal common suppliers, identify synergies with mainstream distributor brands, and implement common policies towards co-packers for premium distributor brands. Considerable attention will go to sharing consumption trends and data with industry, in a perspective of synergy-driven growth. And the alliance will place special emphasis on securing a new business equilibrium that favours SMEs offering quality Italian products.