Carrefour (Pronunție în franceză: /kaʁfuʁ/) este o companie multinațională franceză, fiind unul din cei mai

mari retaileri din lume cu peste 12.300 de magazine (inclusiv peste 1.450 de hipermarketuri) în anul
2018. Carrefour este un retailer important în România cu afaceri de 10 miliarde de lei în 2018.[2]
Grupul Carrefour operează în mod direct în Franța, Spania, Italia, Belgia, Polonia, România,
Argentina, Brazilia, China și Taiwan.
Carrefour înseamnă "intersecție" în limba franceză, primele magazine deschise în Franța fiind
situate lângă intersecții. Kaufland [ˈkaʊ̯flant] is a German hypermarket chain, part of the Schwarz
Gruppe which also owns Lidl. The hypermarket directly translates to English as 'buy-land'. It opened
its first store in 1984 in Neckarsulm and quickly expanded to become a leader in what was
formerly East Germany. The chain operates over 1,200 stores in Germany, the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Moldova.[2] On 22 January 2020,
Kaufland announced that it had dropped its plans to open stores in Australia.

Contents

 1History
 2Operations
 3Gallery
 4References
 5External links

History[edit]

Kaufland logo until November 2016

The history of Kaufland began when Joseph Schwarz entered the Südfrüchte Großhandlung Lidl &
Co. at Heilbronn as a shareholder in 1930, which was then renamed Lidl & Schwarz KG.[3] In
subsequent years it was the company aimed to expand its range and become a food wholesaler.
After the Second World War, the company was rebuilt: in 1954 it entered the A & O-chain.
With Handels- und Fruchthof Heilbronn GmbH the first regional warehouse was opened in
northern Wurttemberg. In 1964, the company expanded its range of products by opening a meat
department. In 1968 the first Handelshof discount store was opened in Backnang, and in 1977 at the
same place a hypermarket of the same name was established. After the death of Joseph Schwarz in
1977 his son Dieter Schwarz took over the management of the company.
In 1984 the first Kaufland hypermarket was opened in Neckarsulm, the place of the company's
headquarters since 1972.
After the reunification of Germany the Kaufland chain expanded into the Eastern German states and
opened numerous markets. The first East German Kaufland store was opened in Meissen in 1990,
the first Kaufmarkt SB Warenhaus opened in 1994 in Zwickau. In 1998, the first department store
outside of Germany was established in Ostrava, Czech Republic. In the 2000s, the company
established branches in Slovakia (since 2000), Croatia (2001), Poland (2001), Romania (2005),
Bulgaria (2006) and Moldova (2018).
In 2006 and 2007, other store openings followed in Germany and Kaufland also took over shares of
competitors. In February 2009 the corporation claimed to have 73,000 employees in Germany.[4]
In December 2009, Kaufland announced the building of a new meat processing plant
in Heiligenstadt, Thuringia for a total of € 85 million until 2013. About 400 local employees were to
deliver 45,000 tons of meat per year to around 600 stores of the corporation.[citation needed]
In January 2010, it was announced that Karl Lupus GmbH & Co. KG was cleared by antitrust
authorities to sell their 12 stores of the famila Handels-Betriebe GmbH & Co. KG Rhein-Neckar and
the Cash-&-Carry-Markt Lupus Food Service with 1,400 employees to Kaufland.[5]
In January 2010, the Kaufland group had purchased all five Schleckerland drug stores
in Ehingen, Geislingen, Tempe, Neu-Ulm, Schwäbisch Gmünd and all but the Neu-Ulm store had
been converted to the Kaufland brand by then. The local Schleckerland was closed down because
Kaufland was already present in Neu-Ulm.[6]
From 2011 onward, all Handelshof stores were to be gradually be converted to the Kaufland brand
and to be partly rebuilt and enlarged.
In September 2019, Kaufland announced plans to open 20 stores in Australia.[7] In January 2020,
Kaufland announced it would leave Australia. It had invested about 310 million euro and never
opened a store.[8]
On 26 September 2019, the first two Moldovan stores were opened in the capital city of Chișinău.[9]

Operations