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Kaufland
Company type Private
Industry Retail
Founded1984; 40 years ago (1984)
Headquarters Neckarsulm, Germany
Number of locations
1,530 (October 2023)
Area served
 Germany, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia
Products Hypermarkets
Revenue €31.8 billion (2022) [1]
Number of employees
155,000 (2023) [2]
Parent Schwarz Gruppe
Website www.kaufland.com

Kaufland ( [ˈkaʊ̯flant]) is a German hypermarket chain, part of the Schwarz Gruppe which also owns Lidl. The hypermarket directly translates to English as "buy-land." It opened its first store in 1984 in Neckarsulm and quickly expanded to become a major chain in what was formerly West Germany. It operates over 1,500 stores [3] in Germany, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova. [4]

History

Scanners for customers of the Kaufland in Poland

The history of Kaufland began when Joseph Schwarz entered the Südfrüchte Großhandlung Lidl & Co. company as a shareholder in 1930, which was then renamed Lidl & Schwarz KG. [5] The company expanded its range from fruit to a food and goods wholesaler. [6]

After World War II, the company was rebuilt: in 1954 it moved into its own property in Heilbronn and joined the A & O retail chain. [7] With Handels- und Fruchthof Heilbronn GmbH the first regional warehouse was opened in northern Württemberg. In 1964, the company expanded its range of products by opening a meat department. [7]

In 1968 the first Handelshof discount store was opened in Backnang, [8] and in 1977 at the same place a hypermarket of the same name was established. After the death of Joseph Schwarz in 1977 his son Dieter Schwarz took over the management of the company. [8] Taking the name of his father's former business partner, he introduced the Lidl chain which were primarily discount stores and they quickly grew into 30 stores. [6] As an alternative to these stores, he developed Kaufland. [6] In 1984 the first Kaufland hypermarket was opened. [6]

After the reunification of Germany the Kaufland chain expanded into the Eastern German states and opened numerous markets. [6] The first East German Kaufland store was opened in Meissen in 1990. [9] In 1998, the first department store outside of Germany was established in the Czech Republic. [6] In the 2000s, the company established branches in Slovakia (since 2000), Croatia (2001), Poland (2001), Romania (2005), Bulgaria (2006) and Moldova (2018).

In 2006 and 2007, other store openings followed in Germany and Kaufland also took over shares of competitors. In February 2009 the corporation claimed to have 73,000 employees in Germany. [10]

In January 2010, it was announced that Karl Lupus GmbH & Co. KG was cleared by antitrust authorities to sell their 12 stores of the famila Handels-Betriebe GmbH & Co. KG Rhein-Neckar and the Cash-&-Carry-Markt Lupus Food Service with 1,400 employees to Kaufland. [11]

In January 2010, the Kaufland group had purchased all five Schleckerland drug stores in Ehingen, Geislingen, Tempe, Neu-Ulm, Schwäbisch Gmünd and all but the Neu-Ulm store had been converted to the Kaufland brand by then. The local Schleckerland was closed down because Kaufland was already present in Neu-Ulm. [12]

From 2011 onward, all Handelshof stores were to be gradually be converted to the Kaufland brand and to be partly rebuilt and enlarged.

In November 2016, Kaufland's parent company applied for Kaufland trademarks in Australia. [13] In September 2019, Kaufland announced plans to open 20 stores in Australia. [14] In January 2020, Kaufland announced it would leave Australia, two years after buying its first store and six months after starting work on its distribution centre. It had invested about 310 million euro and hired over 200 staff members but never opened a store. [15] The first stores were originally expected to open in 2019 but the launch date had been pushed back to 2021. [16]

On 26 September 2019, the first two Moldovan stores were opened in the capital city of Chișinău. [17] Construction of the fourth Moldovan store started on 23 July 2020, in the southern city of Comrat. [18] The beginning of construction at the fifth Moldovan store in the city of Ungheni was announced on 6 October 2020. [19]

Operations

European countries in which Kaufland is active
Country Number of stores
  Germany 768 [20]
  Poland 243 [21] [22]
  Romania 177 [23] [24]
  Czech Republic 143 [25] [26]
  Slovakia 79 [27] [28]
  Bulgaria 65 [29] [30]
  Croatia 48 [31] [32]
  Moldova 9 [33] [34]

Gallery

References

  1. ^ "Die Unternehmen der Schwarz Gruppe wachsen auf stabilem Niveau" (in German). gruppe.scharz. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  2. ^ "Standorte - alles auf einen Blick" (in German). kaufland.de. Retrieved 3 October 2023.
  3. ^ "Kaufland opens in Romania the 1500th store in its European network". Romania Insider. 24 November 2022. Retrieved 30 March 2023.
  4. ^ "Kaufland neu in der Republik Moldau in der Hauptstadt Chisinau gehen die ersten beiden Filialen ans Netz". Presseportal.de (in German). 26 September 2019.
  5. ^ "Über Josef Schwarz". Josef Schwarz Schule. n.d. Retrieved 13 January 2020.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Zentes, Joachim; Morschett, Dirk; Schramm-Klein, Hanna (2016). Strategic Retail Management: Text and International Cases. Springer. pp. 39–44. ISBN  9783658101831.
  7. ^ a b Schwedt, Georg (2006). Vom Tante-Emma-Laden zum Supermarkt: eine Kulturgeschichte des Einkaufens (in German). Wiley-VCH. p. 99. ISBN  9783527502189. Nach der Zerstörung im Zweiten Weltkrieg erfolgte ein Wiederaufbau und 1954 der Bezug eines eigenen Anwesens in Heilbronn sowie der Eintritt in die damalige A&O - Handelskette. 1964 ist das Jahr des Kaufland - Fleischwerks..
  8. ^ a b Siegfried, Patrick (2015). International Management in Practice Volume 1: Lenovo, Ferrero, DaimlerChrysler, BASF, Opel, Lidl, Coca-Cola, Viessmann. Akademische Verlagsgemeinschaft München. pp. 136–139. ISBN  9783960913689.
  9. ^ Grant, Tina (2009). International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 100. St. James Press. p. 385. ISBN  9781558626348. In October 1990 a Kaufland opened in Meissen in the eastern German state of Saxony. After that the chain grew rapidly throughout the region.
  10. ^ "Kaufland investiert in Logistiknetz". February 2009. Archived from the original on 19 December 2009.
  11. ^ "Aus Famila wird Kaufland: Alle Mitarbeiter übernommen". Pforzheimer Zeitung (in German). 19 January 2010. Archived from the original on 11 February 2013.
  12. ^ "Schleckerland macht zu". Schwäbische Zeitung. 25 November 2009.
  13. ^ Carey, Alexis (24 January 2020). "Why German supermarket pulled the pin on Australia". NewsComAu. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  14. ^ "Kaufland announces plans to open at least 20 stores in Australia". NewsComAu. 2 September 2019.
  15. ^ Powell, Johnson (22 January 2020). "'Gobsmacked': German retail giant Kaufland abandons Australia, adding to retail woes". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  16. ^ Mitchell, Sue (22 January 2020). "'No warning' as Kaufland pulls plug on Australia". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  17. ^ "Kaufland eröffnet in der Republik Moldau erste Filialen". Stimme.de (in German). 26 September 2019.
  18. ^ "Sergiu Railean: "Mă bucură faptul că tot mai mulți investitori străini decid să-și lanseze afaceri în țara noastră"". Archived from the original on 22 October 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  19. ^ Lucrările de construcție a magazinului Kaufland din Municipiul Ungheni sunt în plină desfășurare Kaufland.md
  20. ^ "Angebote in meiner Nähe". kaufland.de. Retrieved 3 October 2023.
  21. ^ https://www.kaufland.pl/
  22. ^ "Kaufland strengthens its position in Rzeszów. The chain opens a second market in this city". wiadomoscihandlowe.pl (in Polish). 23 November 2022.
  23. ^ https://www.kaufland.ro/
  24. ^ "Kaufland inaugurates two stores, in Zalău and in the Militari Residence neighborhood in Bucharest". retail-fmcg.ro (in Romanian). 28 February 2024.
  25. ^ https://www.kaufland.cz/
  26. ^ "Kaufland has been bringing the best price on the Czech market for 25 years". kaufland.cz (in Czech). 4 January 2023.
  27. ^ https://www.kaufland.sk/
  28. ^ "A new Kaufland grew in the Podpoľania region, the chain opened its 79th store in Detva". sita.sk (in Slovak). 26 October 2023.
  29. ^ https://www.kaufland.bg/
  30. ^ ""Kaufland" invests BGN 50 million in a hypermarket in "Manastirski Livadi-Istok"". capital.bg (in Bulgarian). 2 November 2023.
  31. ^ https://www.kaufland.hr/
  32. ^ "The 48th Kaufland store was opened". vecernji.hr (in Croatian). 12 October 2023.
  33. ^ https://www.kaufland.md/
  34. ^ "VIDEO: The fifth Kaufland store in the capital opened in the city of Codru (Schinoasa region)". jurnal.md (in Romanian). 26 December 2022.

External links

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