Grocery markets

Market research carried out by IGD Research predicts Russia will be Europe's largest grocery market by 2020. Russia is forecast to almost treble it's market power over the next fifteen years to EUR 375bn to become European leader. The Russian food and grocery market is divided between locally-owned discounters and mainly foreign-owned supermarkets and hypermarkets. A non-competitive and fragmented market, it also has a complicated title registration procedure which, when combined, create a barrier to international firms. Discounters hold the market share by keeping margins low for their suppliers, who must in turn follow suit, making it a tough market for western European food processors to crack. Germany currently holds the pole position with a food and grocery market worth EUR 202bn according to 2004 figures. By the end of 2020 it is set to fall to fourth position, with the UK lying in third and France at number 2.