T. Ozbun
Research expert covering food retail and all food topics for Italy and Brazil
Conad - statistics & facts
Conad, acronym of Consorzio Nazionale Dettaglianti, is a cooperative company and the largest food retailer in Italy. The company was founded in 1962, in Bologna, as a limited liability cooperative society of small retailers who wanted to organize together the supply and purchase of food, beverages, and consumer goods. Today, Conad operates a total of 3,305 stores with over 65,000 employees. The whole consortium consists of five cooperatives, Pac 200A, Conad Nord Ovest, Commercianti Indipendenti Associati, Conad Centro Nord, and Conad Adriatico, which altogether unite 2348 retailers, exemplifying the distribution model of the trader-entrepreneur as part of a cooperative.
Key figures
In the past years, Conad has displayed a steady growth, which in 2019 granted it the absolute leadership of large-scale retail in the country. That same year, the company acquired the supermarket chain Auchan, which due to financial losses, withdrew from Italy and had to sell the assets of its Auchan Retail Italia. This resulted in Conad generating a revenue of nearly 16 billion euros in 2020 and displaying a growth of 12.3% over the previous year, its highest so far. Thanks to its growth and success, the company has also laid out important three-year investment plans; the latest aimed at the period between 2021 and 2023 with around 1.8 billion euros for new openings, renovations, and digitization.Competitors
Even though it still ranks as the leading food retailer in Italy, Conad seems to be in a tight spot, with competitors such as the Esselunga Group, Coop Italia, Gruppo VéGé, and Selex attempting to shorten the gap and even surpass it. Despite Coop Italia coming in second place in 2020 in terms of turnover value, at 14.4 billion euros, both Selex and Gruppo VéGé have experienced steady growth, with the former forecasting a turnover value in 2021 of 16.9 billion, possibly exceeding that of Conad should the cooperative group close the year with low growth.
