27 mrt 2024 om 09:46 Update: 49 min. geleden
Supermarket chain PLUS had to take another loss last year, with a minus of more than 31 million euros. This is mainly because converting acquired Coop stores entails additional costs.
This is evident from the annual report that PLUS has published. The company took over competitor Coop in 2021 and therefore grew into the third supermarket company in the country, after Albert Heijn and Jumbo.
At the announcement, PLUS announced that it would convert all acquired stores to its own green formula. Over the past two years, approximately half of the 316 Coop stores have been overhauled.
According to previous plans, the conversion operation would be completed this year. But whether the company will achieve that remains to be seen. The conversion would then have to be much faster than in the past two years.
Commissioning a new distribution center cost 25 million euros
PLUS incurred additional costs of 27 million euros due to the acquisition. An additional 25 million euros was added for the commissioning of a new distribution center in Geldermalsen. This resulted in an annual loss of 31.2 million euros. That is 70 percent more than the 18.4 million euros of a year earlier.
The supermarket chain’s turnover grew by 2.6 percent last year to 4.8 billion euros. That growth was significantly lower than other companies in the sector. This was partly because there were supply problems with frozen products last summer. Another factor was that eight stores were sold or closed.
At the end of last year, PLUS had 557 stores, of which 160 still had the Coop formula on the facade. The workforce shrank by 134 FTEs to 4,147. The decline was mainly due to employees leaving early due to the announced closure of several distribution centers.
