家乐福巴西五年关停大卖场转攻Atacadão，中资供应商渠道重心需重估

Julien Munch, of Carrefour Ana Paula Paiva/Valor Carrefour has a global strategic plan announced in February covering 2026 through 2030, with Brazil playing a key role in meeting a set of ongoing targets. The group’s focus worldwide is on France, Spain, and Brazil. Some measures have already been implemented, including efforts to accelerate the supermarket and big-box store businesses in Brazil, the division’s new leadership said. In this case, the businesses will have to grow mainly through internal initiatives, as store expansion plans have been ruled out. The executive overseeing these operations is Frenchman Julien Munch, a former COO in France and former CEO in Romania, an operation sold this year as part of the group’s plan to exit non-strategic markets. Since January, shortly before the global plan was announced, Munch has headed Carrefour’s retail operations in Brazil, as well as Carrefour Property and Sam’s Club. Carrefour returns to growth in Brazil, improves profitability in Q2 Foreign retailers outperform Brazilian peers as consumer market slows Brazil’s food retailers deepen discounts as sales volumes fall In his first interview since taking the job, Munch said the strategy is to increase foot traffic and purchase frequency through “good commercial execution,” with a focus on price. The executive vice president rules out further big-box store closures in Brazil this year, as well as converting stores into Atacadão outlets. Three big-box stores have already been closed in 2026. He also does not expect new supermarket or big-box store openings in the short term. The closed stores were in Curitiba, in Paraná state; Novo Hamburgo, in Rio Grande do Sul; and Santa Maria, also in Rio Grande do Sul. “Under the plan through 2030, expansion will be focused on Atacadão. We have a store expansion plan for the cash-and-carry chain. For the other formats, the focus is on growing by attracting more customers and increasing purchase frequency through the loyalty program and new initiatives in stores,” he said. Munch said the group is accelerating its test-and-learn process for new in-store initiatives to become more agile. Carrefour Anália Franco, in the eastern part of São Paulo, and Carrefour Limão, in the city’s northern area, have been used more extensively for these initiatives, as have Sam’s Club Bom Retiro, in central São Paulo, and the Radial Leste location, also in the eastern part of the city. According to consultants, this has been one of Carrefour’s weaknesses in recent years: moving quickly enough to test and implement initiatives, and to roll out measures that can deliver tangible results in stores. Seen as the “Titanic” of Brazilian retail and the sector leader, with annual sales of more than R$120 billion, Carrefour benefits from its enormous sales volume but also has to contend with the challenges of moving quickly at that size. At the same time, the global plan calls for Atacadão to open 40 stores in Brazil by 2028 and 70 over five years, equivalent to about 18% of its store base when the plan was launched, as reported in February. That means an average of 14 new stores a year. If all 70 stores are opened, the group will have 455 Atacadão locations by 2030. The target is achievable, but ambitious given that interest rates remain in the double digits. Based on an average of 14 stores a year, the group opened 22 stores in both 2021 and 2022. Atacadão has been headed by Marcos Samaha since April. In the retail business, measures mentioned by Munch include changes in how products are displayed across stores. “We’re expanding some categories and adjusting others. We’ve already moved perishables [fruit and vegetables] to the entrance at big-box stores. We’re also expanding the assortment to give greater prominence to home products, which have been seeing strong demand,” he said. Another initiative under way is the consolidation of the company’s loyalty program, now called “Nosso Clube” [Our Club], which will eventually be available across all of the company’s retail formats. The program has been in a testing phase for about two months in the states of Paraíba and Pernambuco, involving 50 stores. The plan is to roll out Nosso Clube nationwide by the end of 2028. “Program members more than doubled their average monthly visits to stores, from 1.9 to more than four times, and average spending increased by more than 50%,” the executive said. One challenge in this transformation is giving supermarkets and big-box stores a fresh boost without bringing them too close to the cash-and-carry model, which could backfire. This challenge has become increasingly evident in the sector as cash-and-carry chains have expanded over the past five years. Cash-and-carry chains have grown in Brazil by taking market share from big-box stores. In 2024, Carrefour began testing cash-and-carry prices in its hypermarkets. Munch said the formats are becoming more similar, but certain differences need to be preserved to ensure that big-box stores remain relevant to customers. For example, the executive said Carrefour could offer a broader assortment than cash-and-carry stores, providing customers with more options; place greater emphasis on private-label products, an area where cash-and-carry chains are still in the early stages; and, at the same time, keep prices relatively close to those offered by cash-and-carry operators, while controlling operating costs. According to Carrefour’s financial statements, the food business is growing in Brazil, as are the supermarket and big-box store formats on a same-store sales basis (stores that have been operating for more than 12 months). However, the trend does not show sustained acceleration. Food sales rose 4.3% in 2025 and 2.8% in the first quarter, before slowing to 1.7% in the second quarter on a same-store, volume basis. Despite the loss of momentum, the performance was better than that of rivals Grupo Mateus and Cencosud. Looking at the channels separately, Carrefour’s big-box stores grew 2.5% from April through June, while supermarkets grew 5.5%. The latter was above inflation as measured by Brazil’s benchmark consumer price index, the IPCA, which rose 4.6% over the period, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The difference between the two channels is partly due to demand for consumer electronics, which has been affected by expensive credit and high interest rates. Big-box stores feel the impact more when electronics sales slow. Despite the impact, and although the business is now smaller than those of its competitors—the group has closed big-box stores and converted dozens of locations into Atacadão stores in recent years—Carrefour’s management says it will maintain the business. The chain needs to remain competitive in a segment with 105 big-box stores that sell electronics, in addition to its website, meaning it has less purchasing volume with manufacturers to negotiate prices than the industry’s largest chains. According to Munch, the purpose of a big-box store is to sell everything under one roof, making it worthwhile to maintain the business. “What we’re doing is adapting the electronics category by expanding some subcategories, such as small appliances, and scaling back others. Carrefour Anália Franco is part of this experiment,” he said. The chain also offers the Carrefour credit card and Banco Carrefour financing, including purchases payable in up to 20 interest-free installments, an advantage in a market that relies heavily on consumer credit to remain competitive. For S&P Global Ratings, the bank is strategically important to Carrefour, which owns 60% of its shares, “as a tool for customer loyalty and market monitoring, as well as a means of capitalizing on the customer base,” the ratings agency said in a May report. At the same time, S&P expects the group to apply stricter credit standards amid a global environment of high interest rates. Brazil is Carrefour’s second-largest market. Alongside these initiatives, one of Carrefour’s most significant projects in Brazil involves integrating Atacadão and Carrefour headquarters and consolidating the chains’ commercial systems. The move comes as the company’s former campus in Alphaville, in Barueri, São Paulo state, was gradually phased out this year and the property became an asset of Carrefour Property. The decision was made in part as a cost-cutting measure. The technology and commercial teams at Atacadão and Carrefour are being consolidated, while the administrative operation was moved to Atacadão’s facility. The changes are being led by CEO Pablo Lorenzo. One of the challenges is integrating the two chains under a single commercial system, led by Atacadão. Once that is in place, products could, for example, be transferred from one store to another across the two chains. Another step under way is adopting a single technology platform. “The issue here is having the same language, the same master database, and then each brand will use part or all of that database. We’re not going to reduce the number of [product] records; each chain will use what it needs,” he said. “Another issue is that Carrefour’s big-box store IT system was different from Atacadão’s. We’re now changing it so that it will be the same as Atacadão’s.” The technology challenge is that system migrations can sometimes cause store disruptions. “We’re able to do it without disrupting customers. We do it at night, and when we open in the morning, customers won’t notice any difference.”