Jumbo wants to open ten new stores in Belgium this year

The Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo is planning to open “about ten new stores” in Belgium this year. That is stated in the 2024 annual report of the chain. The network would go towards fifty stores, six years after Jumbo made the crossing to our country.

Jumbo opened four stores in Belgium last year and finished the year with 37 branches. They were good for a turnover of 397 million euros, the chain announced earlier. And for the first time they realized a “modest profit”, a year earlier than expected.

“In the new year we provide persistent revenue growth in Belgium, with both existing and new stores,” Jumbo writes in his annual report. “We focus on further improving store processes, increase availability in the store and investigate opportunities to add even more local products to the range.”

At the end of 2019, Jumbo opened his first store in Belgium, in Pelt in Limburg.

Jumbo appoints interim chief executive

Tom Heidman has appointed the Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo as interim CEO. He will lead the chain until a definitive successor has been found for Ton van Veen, who leaves Jumbo at the end of March, was announced on Thursday.

Heidman has already had several management positions, including at Albert Heijn, Gall & Gall and Retail Network. He was also chairman of the board at C1000 when that store formula was taken over by Jumbo.

The Interim CEO starts on March 1 and will work with Van Veen for another month. The latter announced in January that he would leave Jumbo after more than twenty years of career at the company. He had become a top man in 2022.

In the meantime, Jumbo is looking for a fixed CEO. “We have every confidence in someone who will be connected to our family business for a long term,” it says.

The Dutch supermarket group had 726 stores at the end of last year, of which 37 in Belgium. The group achieved a turnover of more than 10 billion euros.

By Editor