International News - Carrefour own-label will spearhead price assault

Carrefour, the world's second- biggest store group, is to launch its own-label No.1 brand across all of its markets as it becomes more aggressive on price.

Speaking at the Deutsche Bank Global Food Retail Conference in Madrid, chairman and chief executive officer Daniel Bernard said that No 1 will carry the cheapest products in the countries in which Carrefour operates.

He said: 'Our objective is to have everywhere the cheapest prices in the market - 3 to 5 per cent cheaper than the hard discounters.'

PricewaterhouseCoopers Transaction Services chief retail adviser Michael Poynor said: 'Carrefour has to ensure that it (No 1] carries quality.

The reasons why the likes of Aldi have continued to grow successfully is that the quality level is high, despite the plain store environment.

That's something that people always underestimate.'

Separately, Bernard said that Carrefour's core European market is the main priority for the business, with 70 per cent of capital expenditure dedicated to its operations on the Continent this year. He said that Carrefour will open 10 hypermarkets, 40 supermarkets and 210 hard discount stores across Europe this year.

Carrefour's five lead countries - France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Belgium - account for 81 per cent of group sales. Bernard added that Carrefour is to break even in Brazil this year.

Carrefour - the name means crossroads - has more than 9,000 stores worldwide and is second only to Wal-Mart in terms of scale and generates sales in excess of EUR68.73 billion (£48.07 billion).