Metro Cash & Carry to launch delivery service in Germany

Metro Cash & Carry will launch a nationwide delivery service in Germany. The company will further adjust its wholesale activities to the changed requirements of its professional clients. It will focus on hotels, restaurants, catering, kiosk and snack bar businesses. In October 2008, Metro announced that it is considering the introduction of new services and that a new delivery service is already being tested on a local basis. The measure is conceived as a long-term business reorganisation and is not a reaction to the financial market crisis. The wholesaler expects new sales opportunities through the move. Metro Cash & Carry has invested an amount of less than EUR10 million (USD13.4 million) in the infrastructure of the delivery service. "We completed our pilot phase at the turn of the year and are already in the black. Thus, we have already surpassed our goals," Metro Cash & Carry Managing Director Harald Fraszczak was cited as having said in Lebensmittel Zeitung. Metro wants to triple its delivery volume by the end of 2009, and intends to generate revenue in the hundreds of millions of euros. In the first phase, the company was able to win more than 3,000 new customers from the core target group hotels, restaurants and catering. At the same time, the delivery service significantly increased sales of already existing Metro customers. Currently, the test phase comprises approximately 250 employees and more than 150 lorries in 61 cash & carry outlets Germany-wide. Customers can choose between 50,000 food and non-food articles.

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