Core prompt：France: organic retail continues to expandAs last year, France is excelling with high growth rates in the organic
France: organic retail continues to expand
As last year, France is excelling with high growth rates in the organic sector. In terms of both land area and turnover, the increase is impressive. The expansion of the specialist wholefood trade in France continues unabated. In the first four months of 2017 (middle of December 2016 to middle of April 2017) 61 specialist organic stores and organic supermarkets were opened. The average retail area measured 335 m². Total turnover of the organic industry, including catering, is around 7 billion euros.
Organic chains in the lead
Most of the new organic outlets have been created by Biocoop, La Vie Claire and Naturalia across the whole of France – testimony to the leading role played by the Biocoop network and the twoorganic chains in the country's organic market. However, regional chains - L'Eau Vive, Naturéo and Les Comptoirs de la bio – have also opened new branches. In the case of the Biomonde network, growing strongly a few years ago, there has been hardly any evidence of expansion during 2016 and this year.
Naturéo - 42 % growth
Growth in turnover achieved by Biocoop was an astonishing 25 % and, at 950 million euros, was a record result, whereas after a few years of competition the Biomonde network, with its 185 stores, is stagnating. With 431 stores, Biocoop was, according to Agence Bio, 5 % above the 20% overall growth of the organic market. Biocoop's prognosis: if growth in turnover continues at this rapid rate it will amount to 1.2 billion euros by the end of 2017. In a press release, the company has announced that it will open 60 new outlets this year in France. In terms of growth in turnover, Biocoop is still second to Naturéo, that has registered growth of 42 %. Within ten years it has opened 42 big organic supermarkets (in many cases 800-1000 m²), taking the company step by step beyond the Paris region. 20 new stores are planned for 2017
La Vie Claire and Naturalia also very successful
With growth of 27 % in 2016, La Vie Claire also achieved turnover that is significantly above the average for the industry. At 220 million euros, its turnover exceeded the 200 million threshold. In 2017 the company is planning to open another 40 stores. Currently it has 292 predominantly quite small organic health food stores in France, plus three in Morocco, three in Israel and another ten in overseas territories. In recent years Naturalia has also been sprinting along at an impressive pace. This organic company is a part of the Monoprix corporation.At the end of 2016 it had 145 specialist organic stores, 20 of which were new openings. From the May/June edition of Bio-Linéaires, a specialist publication for the wholefood trade in France, we learn that annual turnover came to almost 200 million euros.
City ranking: a surprising result
For the first time, Bio-Linéaires carried out a ranking that reveals how many wholefood and organic stores there are per 1000 inhabitants. You might well have expected Paris to be in first place, but it's not - it's Aix-en-Provence. With 14 specialist wholefood stores and organic supermarkets, the 141,000 citizens of this city in the south of France are well provided for by one store per 10,000 people. With 11,300 inhabitants per store, Paris is slightly worse off and in second place, followed by the Lyon and Grenoble regions (third and fourth place). Nice on the Côte d’Azur, where the number of stores has increased to 23 in just a few years, comes fifth.
Clearly irritated more and more by the great success of specialist wholefood stores, Carrefour, France's biggest retailer, intends to offer organic products not only within its conventional range in the way it has done so far. It now wants to expand much more rapidly than hitherto its own specialist stores that are operating under the name Carrefour Bio. Within the four years to 2021 its current 14 outlets will be transformed into an astonishing tally of 150 stores. This is how this massive corporation (turnover of 77 billion euros in 2015) wants to benefit from the trend towards 100% specialist organic stores.
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