Carrefour - 2017 Registration Document

France’s first hypermarket was opened at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, in the Paris region. The first of its kind, this 2,500 sq.m. self-service hypermarket offered a vast choice of products at low prices and had 400 free parking spaces. 1959 The Carrefour Supermarchés company was created following a meeting between Marcel Fournier, owner of a novelty shop in Annecy, and the Badin-Defforey business, a grocery wholesaler in Lagnieu. 1966 The Carrefour logo was created to mark the opening of the hypermarket in Vénissieux, near Lyon. It depicted the first letter of the word Carrefour placed in the middle of a diamond with the left half coloured red and the right half coloured blue, with black lines above and below. The black lines soon disappeared, leaving the C less visible, almost subliminal. 1970 To finance its growth, Carrefour was listed on the Paris Stock Exchange, a first for the retail sector. 1973 Carrefour expanded internationally and explored new markets, opening its first stores in Spain under the Pryca banner, followed by Brazil in 1975. 1960 Both from an entrepreneurial background, they hit upon a new idea: self-service, French-style, which they tried out in a 200-sq.m. store before opening an 850-sq.m. supermarket at the crossroads of Avenue Parmelan and Avenue André Theuriet in Annecy. To offer its customers more affordable products, Carrefour reinvented its business and started to sell its own products. This was the beginning of produits libres (unbranded products) in plain packaging that would go on to revolutionise the consumer products business. Carrefour developed a new relationship with the agricultural industry by creating a completely new type of partnership, “Carrefour Quality Lines”. The same year, Carrefour ushered in the era of organic products in retail with its Boule Bio organic bread. 1981 Carrefour created the PASS card, a credit card and customer loyalty card rolled into one, which was an immediate success. Just three years after its launch, 200,000 customers had PASS cards and had used them for more than four million transactions. 1982 Changes in legislation and new consumer habits encouraged international development, which led to store openings in Argentina and then, in 1989, in Taiwan. 1963 1992 1976 PRESENTATION OF THE CARREFOUR GROUP History of the Carrefour group 2017 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT | CARREFOUR 1. 12 History of the Carrefour group 1.2