Elsevier Food International

Volume 5, No. 2 May 2002

Market Vision
"For the past 40 years hypermarkets haven't focused on and targeted their customers in the way that Auchan is now doing," says Auchan's marketing director Andre Tordjman. He explains how the French hypermarket retailer has managed to pull this off: "In the last two to three years we've adopted a much more added value position when it comes to retailer-manufacturer collaboration."

Redefining a retailer

EFI Special
Over the last five years, the total number of food related stores developed by the global Top 30 international operators has increased by 23 per cent. By 2002 the number of outlets had risen to nearly 122,000 up from 98,723 in 1997.

Global Retail Structures

R & D
Standards in food safety have never been higher than they are today.
And according to the recent report State of the Art in Food, the area is set to stay top of the agenda with leading food retailers.

The way ahead for food safety

ECR
As the new co-chairs of the Global Commerce Initiative, Cees van der Hoeven (Ahold) and Antony Burgmans (Unilever) are the figureheads of this platform, which aims to connect the global food industry to the benefit of all.

A long journey towards a global standard

The key to developing a successful intranet - one that promotes rather than inhibits effective and interpersonal communications - will depend on how it is envisioned, built, maintained, used and supported within a corporation.

The power of intranets and your business

After collecting data for years, retailers are finally beginning to dip into their vast data warehouses in a bid to find out more about the elusive consumer.

Tapping into the mother lode

Country Profile
Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary are promising markets with increasing GDPs and consumers eager to shop in modern retail outlets. It was this that initially attracted multinational retailers, and these are now using their position in Central Europe as a springboard to expand to a new range of emerging markets in the Balkan countries.

The Balkans, Europe's new emerging market

Food Watch
40 years after Kmart, Target and Wal-Mart first burst upon the scene - forever changing the definition of retail - the retail industry is dominated by these three mega-chains and a handful of regional players. The leading players continue to adopt very different strategies, however.

US Discounters: Treading different paths

Retail Profile
In recent years the Japanese retailer Aeon has embarked on a resolute process of self-reform. New government legislation on the sitting of large retail stores, the market entry of foreign retailers and B2B e-commerce triggered this process, and now Aeon has set itself an ambitious goal: by 2010 the company wants to belong to the global retail top 10.

Aeon, setting its sights on the Global Top 10

Fresh Foods
China, the US, Brazil and the 15 countries of the European Union consume over 80 per cent of the world's pork between them. Indeed, over the past ten years, increasing affluence in the less well off nations (particularly in China) has seen a doubling in per capita consumption of pork.

Pork's a popular choice