Supermarket chain Rimi Latvia to focus on food retail / Article

The primary goal is to reduce the share of non-food products by 22% and focus mainly on food.

According to the company’s management, the share of small household appliances will be reduced by 50%, candles and home decorations by a fifth, and clothing by 14%.

“Each category will be reviewed, and there will be a reduction so that we can offer a wider range of products that our customers need. There will be no yarn at all, and we will reduce [the range of] small electrical appliances by half. We had a lot of kettles, and we joked among ourselves that we had a kettle shop that was hardly necessary.

“If the reduction affects food, it will be more in the premium segment, because, as we know, consumer habits are changing and there is more demand for average consumption and the economy segment. Shoppers need not worry, we will still have premium products, but there will be fewer of them, as we are seeing a decline in demand,” says Inese Pētersone, Category Department Manager at Rimi Latvia.

Meanwhile, the share of private label products is planned to increase to 33%. Currently, it is lower. It should be noted that private label products are usually cheaper because they are manufactured to order by the stores themselves.

The company’s management promises to increase the economic goods segment from the current 13% to 18%. This shows that the company is already changing in line with the plans of its new owners, as Salling Group, which announced the purchase of the Rimi store chain in the Baltic States, focuses specifically on low-price stores. Salling Group is Denmark’s largest retailer, owning chains such as Netto, Fotex, Bilka and Salling, as well as around a thousand Netto stores in Germany and Poland.

However, Valdis Turlais, head of Rimi Latvia, responded negatively about whether this change in strategy was related to the change of ownership, saying that work on the new strategy had already begun earlier. Nevertheless, the new owners have welcomed it.

In autumn, Rimi plans to open its first test store, which will mainly offer a range of economy products and special offers. The company has not yet disclosed the location, but it is understood that it will be in Riga.

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