Reitan’s green convenience
With a new concept, Reitan Convenience in Sweden hope to create the world's greenest convenience/grocery store, claims Mariette Kristenson, CEO of Reitan Convenience Sweden.
Reitan Convenience
- Reitan Convenience is a strong convenience player in the Nordic and Baltic countries, with over 2000 outlets in seven countries.
- Through well-known and well-established brands such as Narvesen, Pressbyrån, 7-Eleven, R-kioski, Lietuvos Spauda, Northland and Caffeine, Reitan Convenience has a market-leading position in all countries.
- The turnover in 2019 was NOK 15.3 billion.
A new sustainable and green store concept will soon come to life in Sweden, according to Reitan Convenience. With the brand PBX (picture), Reitan Conveniance Sweden has ambitions to create the world's “greenest grocery store! In the store the company plans to test which green initiatives work best:
“It is our biggest investment ever - and something we must do to be able to operate a profitable business in the long run. It is with great humility that we embark on this journey with the ambitious goal of creating the world's most sustainable store. With PBX, we want to create a business model with a positive imprint both socially, financially, and not least environmentally,” Kristenson declares.
Open summer 2021
According to the plan, the PBX store in Stockholm will open this summer. The store is part of Reitan’s Convenience's sustainability strategy, which was launched in 2019.
At that time, 12 goals were set for the business - including that in 2030 it should be climate neutral, and that sold and produced goods should be eco-friendly.
Price, selection, quality, and location
Environmentally friendly policy may be a competitive advantage today, but there is reason to believe that it will be more like a future necessity and not stand out as strong additional feature for grocery chains for very long.
It is of course very positive that Reitan Convenience takes responsibility for becoming more environmentally optimal, but it is good reasons to believe that this will be a necessity in the near future, a hygiene factor, a variable that everyone must bring with them in order not to lose in the competition.
In Norway, all three major grocery retail companies are concerned with being environmentally friendly, something they share with grocery chains in most mature markets.
Hence, when "the environmental concerns and solutions are in place", it is still price, selection, quality, and location that decide your competitiveness.
Sources: Reitan Convenience, Dansk Handelsblad, Retail News