Russian budget supermarket chain set to open store in Flintshire
A Russian budget supermarket chain that claims to be 30 percent cheaper than Aldi and Lidl is opening a store in Flintshire.
It’s reported that Svetofor, a food discounter first founded in Siberia in 2009, is to open four stores in the UK including one in Mold.
The other UK stores will be in Caldicot, Ribbleton in Preston and Castleford.
Svetofor operates around 3000 stores and trades under the name Mere in Germany, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine
The company is planning to open stores in Italy, Spain, Greece and Bulgaria as well as the UK.
According to a post on an unverified Mere UK Facebook page, the Mold store will be located in the Ambrose Lloyd Centre.
However, Poundland has submitted plans for a new store at the site, permission has also been granted to turn the first floor Ambrose Lloyd Centre into apartments.
There no other indication as yet of where the new Mere store will be located in the Flintshire town.
According to industry publication, The Grocer, the first store will open next month in a former Nisa in Ribbleton.
Each store will be about 10,000 sq ft, according to the Grocer, and will include a walk-in chiller room and “huge freezer.”
This will allow “multi-temperature ranges to be sold directly from the pallets on which they arrive.” The Grocer states.
“The business prides itself on the extreme simplicity of the model, which it likens to a Costco but with no membership fee and no in-store service. Antonovs said this would allow it to undercut even the cheapest UK supermarkets by 20%-30%.” According to the Grocer.
Mere UK’s head of buying, Pavels Antonovs, said that the brand will undercut the UK’s cheapest supermarkets by 20-30 percent.
Each store will have a maximum of 1,200 SKUs or different items, by comparison, Aldi has around 1,400.
There will only eight staff, including a director, four cashiers and three to handle deliveries.
Antonovs said: “We are the gap in the market. We don’t have any competitors.
“Our model is no service and no marketing.”
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