Dive Brief:
- The parent company of UK supermarket chain Sainsbury has entered a joint venture to return the Netto discount markets to England.
- Under the terms of the deal, Sainsbury and Netto's Danish parent company, Dansk Supermarked, will open 15 stores in Britain by the end of next year.
- The Netto brand disappeared from England in 2010 when Walmart's Asda unit acquired the company's 193 UK stores and converted them to Asda markets.
Dive Insight:
Wow. The British grocery sector is in full-blown crisis mode these days ... and it's all because of the remarkable success of the German-style discount stores Aldi and Lidl, which have swept the country and altered the way the British shop.
Sainsbury's partnership with Netto comes just days after Morrison's said it would fire some 2,600 managers in an apparent attempt to duplicate the German model.