Digital Delay, Physical Superiority: The Greek Paradox in Organized Retail
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
At the 15th Food Retail Conference, the annual European survey "The State of Grocery Retail 2025 - Comparing Greece to the rest of EU" was presented by Eurocommerce’s chief economist, Anton Delbarre, offering a multidimensional analysis of the food retail landscape. Analyzing 127 retail chains in Europe for the period 2019-2023, the survey categorizes businesses into four categories based on market share growth and like-for-like sales. The "Growth Champions" stand out with an average of €9.7 billion in sales and 5.8% EBITDA, recording above-average performance in both indicators. The "Expansionists," with €13.8 billion in sales and 4.9% EBITDA, are growing strongly in market share but not correspondingly in sales. The "Organically Growing" category includes companies with €6.6 billion in sales and 6.2% EBITDA, which maintain growth rates in sales but not in market share. Finally, the "Laggards," with €5.8 billion in sales and 4.5% EBITDA, lag behind in both areas.
Greece Behind in Private Label and Digitization
Greece, compared to other European countries, presents peculiarities: lower penetration of private labels, greater importance of physical store presence, and slower rates of adoption of digital tools by retailers. Nevertheless, there are indications that the Greek market is gradually following the general European trend, with emphasis on price restraint, cost optimization, and gradual transition to flexible, omni-channel models.
The New "Normality" in the EU
According to the survey, the new "normality" in the EU is characterized by GDP growth below 2% and inflation slightly above 2%. The war in Ukraine is estimated to have limited growth by 1.5-2 percentage points. For 2024, GDP growth of 0.9% is forecast, reaching 1.8% by 2026, while inflation is expected to decline from 2.6% to 2%. In the food sector, profit margin (EBIT) fell from 3.4% in 2020-2021 to 0.5% in 2022, before recovering to 2.9% in 2023, but still remaining below the cost of borrowing (4.5%).
Source: FoodReporter April 11th 2025 #1386, page 4