Market share of the leading companies in food retail Germany 2009-2023

The Edeka Group was the leader in the German food retail market, with a 25.3 percent share in 2023. The Rewe Group and Schwarz Group followed. Rewe operates a chain of supermarkets around Germany of the same name, while the Schwarz Group is behind such well-known names as Lidl, a discount supermarket, and Kaufland, a discount hypermarket. 

Food retail in the time of corona

German food retail companies rely on various activities, factors, and sectors on a massive scale. These include domestic agriculture performance, imports, manufacturing and production, ongoing climate developments and their influence on crops, as well as a functioning workforce. The latter, relating to both food retail and corresponding industries, has posed a continuous challenge during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic years. Repeated infection waves regularly lead to various establishments and enterprises being understaffed, in turn causing delays and putting supply chains under strain. While the pandemic restrictions have long been lifted, the ongoing energy crisis and German inflation levels create additional challenges for the industry. Despite this, German supermarkets are still widely present.

Current events

While the weekly trip to the supermarket might still end with a full shopping bag, the experience itself has changed for most people, due to food prices rising and wheat export shortages around the world. Consumer spending on food has been growing annually in Germany, as evidenced by various timelines. As of 2022, expenditure amounted to almost 190 billion euros.