Darmstadt: Alnatura for the first time with billions in sales

• fromJens Joachim

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The organic food retailer is growing by double digits, is increasing the internal minimum wage and wants to focus more consistently than before on more reusable and local products.

The Darmstadt organic grocer Alnatura generated sales of more than one billion euros for the first time in the 2019/2020 financial year, which ended on September 30th. Company founder Götz Rehn announced on Wednesday that compared to the previous year, annual sales had increased significantly by almost 20 percent to 1.08 billion euros.

Managing director Rüdiger Kasch announced that four new stores – including the one in Frankfurt’s Ostend – had been opened in 2019/2020. There are currently 136 Alnatura stores in 13 federal states. Kasch also announced the reopening of the Alnatura market in Frankfurt-Bornheim on December 10th. The organic retailer from Darmstadt plans to expand further in the coming years. There are also plans to open a new store in Bad Homburg.

The number of employees has increased by 280 to 3500 employees. According to Rehn, in the Corona crisis, Alnatura doubled the number of apprentices to 146 against the trend compared to the previous financial year. The company founder announced that a high school graduation program would be expanded and a new management trainee program would be launched to train managers in-house.

As an “expression of appreciation for the extraordinary performance of the employees in the stores during the corona pandemic”, Alnatura raised the internal minimum wage by one to 13 euros in October. Alnatura thus pays an hourly rate that is almost 40 percent higher than the 9.35 euros currently required by law.

The company wants to use reusable products even more consistently in order to save on packaging. As of this year, Alnatura has been the first chain retailer to also offer nuts, teas, muesli, lentils, rice, sugar and ketchup in returnable deposit jars.

Alnatura also wants to import even less food and rely on regional and German organic products. Organic goat cheese from the Odenwald and organic walnuts from Ried in Hesse have now also been added to the range.

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