Picture this. You’re a mature Danish food retailing business. Your store count is in the hundreds and you’re showing rapid growth in terms of like-for-like sales, at close to 8% for the current year.

This comes on top of equally robust figures for last year.

An upward curve of this kind doesn’t happen too often in any part of retail unless something pretty unusual has taken place. But then, it is a fairly unusual combination of circumstances that has led to Danish grocer SuperBrugsen’s current stellar progress.

Marketing director Jeff Salter, the man charged with SuperBrugsen’s store development, says the Danish hard discount sector (which accounts for close to 50% of the food retail market) has been rampant and SuperBrugsen is the last man standing as far as a national non-discount chain is concerned.

This would seem to militate against success, rather than promote it, but the disappearance of mid-market competitors has certainly helped. When this is coupled with the recent liberalisation of the Sunday trading laws, which make Sunday a day like any other for retailers, the commercial climate has been beneficial for the retailer.

Things have not always been this way, however. Until 2011, there were six straight years in which SuperBrugsen’s numbers tumbled and market share eroded. Under chief executive Michael Loeve, and with a new concept developed by Salter and his team, the corner has been turned and things appear to be on the up once more.

Evidence of this is found in Roskilde, a small town to the west of Copenhagen. The future for SuperBrugsen can be seen in what is known as a ‘Concept 15’ store. This 14,000 sq ft store is five years old and is located in a new part of Roskilde that has been developed from scratch over the past decade. It is one of two concept stores, the other being in Jutland, in Denmark’s far north.

Local shop for local people

From the outside it looks like any other supermarket, with the exception of flowers and fresh fruit and vegetable displays along the frontage. There are also graphics in the windows emphasising that this is a local store with its roots in the community, stocking a range of lines that come from Roskilde’s surroundings.

Emphasis is also placed on the organic nature offer, which accounts for about 25% of everything on display, according to Loeve. Stand at the entrance and it is rather less the product provenance or its organic nature that is likely to impress: the store’s the thing.

Salter has travelled widely to create the blueprint for this store, visiting supermarkets across the continent, from Rewe’s prize-winning green supermarket in southeast Berlin, to Waitrose in the UK.

And he has not missed a trick when it comes to spotting something that is good and making it part of the new SuperBrugsen DNA.

Bridging the gender divide

For first-time visitors the fresh area will stand out. It is almost self-contained in glass walls, but does not feel enclosed.

Long, low displays of fresh fruit and vegetables dominate the mid-shop in this area and above are circular green lampshades.

These are arranged in lines and when taken in concert with the graphics around the perimeter of the fresh area, they have the effect of marking out and making products distinctive. Lampshades are used across the store as a method of defining which area a shopper is in, becoming a part of the in-store navigation and zoning for shoppers.

Shoppers can also see beyond the fresh area. Salter says prior to the refurbishment there was something fortress-like
about the high-sided gondolas found in the store.

Now, however, the shopper can see directly to the butchery counter at the back of the store which, alongside the food and wine, is one of the hero departments. Loeve says supermarkets need to make in-store environments tolerable for men as well as women. This means, to an extent, pandering to the male stereotype who comes in knowing exactly what he wants, gets it, and then leaves. The butchery counter and the fine wine area are intended to appeal to men as much as women, and the low-level equipment and high-level perimeter graphics are also intended to appeal to both genders.

Loeve says 21 stores out of the 230-strong portfolio will undergo the same treatment as Roskilde this year.

The Concept 15 name signifies that the whole of the SuperBrugsen estate will be similarly converted by 2015.

He is also content with the size and feel of the Roskilde store and its sense of the local. “It’s not big but it is big enough to have everything you may need,” he says.

As an exercise in turning an enterprise around and getting shoppers to love a store again, the Roskilde pilot looks positive. This is a low-cost conversion and should mean that Loeve’s 2015 ambitions for the chain can become a reality.

SuperBrugsen Concept 15

Number of stores 230. Part of the Danish Co-op group

Pilot stores Jutland and Roskilde

Grocery offer Everything you might need without being overwhelmed

Chain status The last national chain of non-discount stores standing in Denmark