5
Manhal Salama (Referendum) 63 months ago
Good service but expensive here in silicon oasis
Carrefour S.A. (French pronunciation: u200b[kaʁfuʁ]) is a French multinational retailer headquartered in Boulogne Billancourt, France, in the Hauts-de-Seine Department near Paris.[2] It is one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world with 12,300 self-service shops (including 1,528 hypermarkets) at the end of 2016. Carrefour operates in more than 30 countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa. Carrefour means "crossroads" in French. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.
The first Carrefour shop (not a hypermarket) opened in 1960, within suburban Annecy near a crossroads. The group was created in 1958 by Marcel Fournier, Denis Defforey and Jacques Defforey,[4] who attended and were influenced by several seminars in the United States led by "the Pope of retail" Bernardo Trujillo.
The Carrefour group was the first in Europe to open a hypermarket, a large supermarket and a department store under the same roof. They opened their first hypermarket on 15 June 1963 in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, near Paris in France.[5]
In April 1976, Carrefour launched a private label Produits libres (free products – libre meaning free in the sense of liberty as opposed to gratis) line of fifty foodstuffs, including oil, biscuits (crackers and cookies), milk, and pasta, sold in unbranded white packages at substantially lower prices.
In 1999, it merged with Promodès, known as Continent, one of its major competitors in the French market.
In September 2009, Carrefour updated its logo.[6]
In May 2011, Carrefour reviewed its situation under conditions of stagnant growth and increasing competition in France from rivals including Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA, and planned to invest €1.5 billion ($2.1 billion) to change the supermarket with the new concept of Carrefour Planet in Western Europe.
In April 2015, Brazilian businessman Abílio Diniz revealed he was in talks to raise his 5.07 percent stake in Carrefour and has the support of shareholders to take a board seat.[7]
On 9 June 2017, the Board of Directors chose Alexandre Bompard as the new Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Carrefour with effect as of 18 July 2017.[8]
In 2017, Carrefour was working with a small French start-up, Expliceat, on a trial basis.[9] Expliceat built a commercial mill that is designed to crumb down leftover bread. It rents the mill to commercial bakeries and then uses the crumb to bake cookies, muffins and pancakes.
In January 2018, Alexandre Bompard announced a strategic plan for the company, entitled "Carrefour 2022", that ambitions to make Carrefour the "leader of the food transition for all". The plan includes measures for better food and package sustainability, limitation of food waste, development of organic products, e-commerce partnerships, two billion euros in annual investments from 2018 as well as organisational an cost reduction measures.[10][11]