Netto (store)

A Netto store at Lygten, in Copenhagen

The first Netto store opened in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1981.[5] At first, the items sat in boxes and on pallets, but the chain quickly expanded, and the service level increased as well. Today, there are 442 stores.

A Døgn Netto in Copenhagen

German Netto

In September 1990, Netto started an internationalisation process, and Germany was the second country to gain Netto stores. The first store was opened in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, back then still part of East Germany, not long after the Fall of the Wall.

Netto has since expanded in the states of Brandenburg, Berlin, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein, and there are a total of more than 340 stores by December 2014. In Germany, a second chain of stores (with over 4100 stores), called Netto Marken-Discount and owned by EDEKA has also been in operation since 1984. The two chains are unrelated to each other.

Polish Netto

The first Netto store in Poland opened in Szczecin in 1995. The expansion of the branch is concentrated in the west part of the country from Szczecin to Gdańsk (for example in Police and Stargard Szczeciński), and through the country to Bydgoszcz, Poznań, and Zielona Góra, and the country has 361 stores today.

Polish Netto in Wojkowice

Swedish Netto

The Swedish part of Netto was founded in 2002, as a joint venture between Dansk Supermarked and ICA called Netto Marknad AB. The co operation was granted by the European Commission in 2001. The headquarters were established in Halmstad in March 2002, and the first store was opened in Trelleborg on 8 May 2002.

A week later, two stores were opened in Lund. In the beginning, Netto kept their stores in the Götaland region. In August 2004, the first stores in Stockholm were opened. In October 2003, the head office moved to Falkenberg. By 2003, there were 28 stores. In 2004, there were 58 stores. In December 2007, there were 84, and in May 2009, there were 107.

In November 2006, ICA announced it was pulling out of the joint venture, reducing its stake from 50% to 5%, today ICA no longer have any stake in the company. Twenty one stores in the Stockholm and Västerås regions would transfer to ICA ownership with most being rebranded to ICA's own formats during 2007.

The reasons for the change were problems in supplying the stores based on Netto's more southern base as well as ICA's desire to focus investment on its own formats. On 10 May 2019, it was announced that Salling Group has signed an agreement with Swedish Coop Butiker & Stormarknader AB on the latter's purchase of the one hundred and sixty three supermarkets of Netto in Sweden.[6]

A Lego Netto Dog outside the Ormskirk branch.

Netto began operating in England in Leeds, on 13 December 1990, with the company's United Kingdom headquarters being in the former mining village of South Elmsall, West Yorkshire. Netto primarily expanded in central England, before moving into Southern England, namely London.

In January 2005, plans for a £200,000,000 investment in South Wales were announced, only to be cancelled. This was all due to logistical issues, resulting in the selling of stores in Barry and Caerphilly. 1,700 jobs were promised in the expansion, with only a few being created. In May 2010, Netto UK was sold to Asda for £778,000,000 in order so that Asda could increase its smaller store portfolio.

The rebranding of 147 former Netto stores, under the Asda brand was completed by 29 November 2011. Competition laws required Asda to sell the remaining 47 stores to other companies, such as Morrisons, new convenience store UGO, and other retailers. In June 2014, Dansk Supermarked returned Netto to the United Kingdom, as a 50:50 joint venture with Sainsbury's. Plans called for one store to be combined with a Sainsbury's.[7]

In July 2016, the two companies announced they were ending the joint venture, and closing the stores. Mike Coupe, chief executive, said: "we have made the difficult decision not to pursue the (Netto) opportunity further, and instead focus on our core business and on the opportunities we will have, following our proposed acquisition of Home Retail Group".[8]

The Netto name is also used in other countries, such as Spain and France, but these stores are independent of the Scandinavian Netto. The Spanish Netto is a chain of convenience stores owned by DinoSol, and the French Netto is a discount chain owned by Les Mousquetaires.