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Denmark’s Coop supermarkets to fire staff after 'historically bad' loss

Ritzau/The Local
Ritzau/The Local - [email protected]
Denmark’s Coop supermarkets to fire staff after 'historically bad' loss
Coop says it will have to cut staff after the supermarket chain posted its worst ever annual loss for 2022. Photo: Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix

Supermarket company Coop will have fewer staff in Denmark in future in a bid to reduce costs, its CEO said on Thursday.

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The comments by Coop CEO Kræn Østergaard Nielsen to retail news media DetailWatch came after the company announced historically bad annual results earlier on Thursday.

Coop lost a total of 628 million kroner on its operations in Denmark last year, according to the annual result. That represents the biggest loss ever made by the company in a year.

High inflation and altered consumer habits are partial causes behind the loss, Coop states in its results sheet, as is investment in its new 365discount chain.

It also said it had lost money at the consumer side as a result of higher prices with suppliers.

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“It’s been a weight around the ankles for us that we have had to do things in eight chains and have such high complexity generally,” Nielsen said.

“And there are going to be a lot fewer of us at Coop. There will be [fewer staff],” he said.

The annual results state that Coop had 10,156 full-time staff on its payroll last year. That number is 346 fewer than in 2021 according to DetailWatch.

CEO Nielsen could not specify the number of staff that would be let go but said it would reach a “significant” total.

Coop announced in January that it was to merge several of its chains in a streamlining operation.

Under the plan, the largest of the Kvickly, SuperBrugsen and Irma stores will all eventually be renamed “Coop”. Remaining, smaller stores will be called “Brugsen” under the rebranding, while former Dagli’ Brugsen stores also join the “Brugsen” brand.

The new structure means Coops eight brands in 2022 -- Kvickly, SuperBrugsen, Dagli´Brugsen, Fakta, 365discount, Irma, Coop.dk Shopping and Coop.dk MAD – are reduced to three: Coop, 365discount and Brugsen.

It also means closure of some excess store locations.

“We have launched a new strategy where we are investing four billion kroner. So that is a growth strategy with more staff in the long term,” Nielsen told news wire Ritzau.

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