Last July, the Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo announced that it wanted to have “regarding twenty stores” in Belgium by the end of the year. The brand wanted to almost double the number of its brands in the country.
Jumbo’s ambition to rapidly increase the number of its stores in Belgium had already been known for some time. Since entering the Belgian market at the end of 2019, eleven stores have already opened there, spread over four Flemish provinces. During the second half of last year, Jumbo therefore planned to add nine, to increase to twenty.
The initial intention was to expand to a hundred Belgian stores in five years. This ambition remains, underlines Jumbo. The supermarket chain even claimed that the results in the country are also “above expectations”.
And Wallonia?
But Jumbo, considered Colruyt’s new competitor in Belgium, will it finally land in Wallonia? Not for now, announces its CEO Frits van Eerd.
First of all, and due to difficult local procedures, the objective of 100 stores is far from being reached for the moment since only 18 supermarkets have opened in Belgium. “Only when our Flemish stores are successful will it make sense for us to expand to the rest of Belgium,” Frits van Eerd told Tijd.
The CEO speaks of an “experimental phase”: “If we open a store in the Netherlands, we can predict everything: turnover, costs, growth. It’s completely different in Belgium. We are not yet able to read the behavior of the Belgians. We are therefore in an experimental phase.
Frits van Eerd nevertheless adds that 100 stores are still a goal for Jumbo. “If you want to build a chain, you don’t do it with 18 stores. In this case, 100 is really a minimum number”. It will therefore be necessary to arm yourself with a little patience before seeing the brand land near you.