Investments in retail real estate, the pandemic pushes the food sector

With the lockdown, and the spread of online and neighborhood purchases, there was a significant increase in the consumption of basic and non-essential goods.

According to experts, in 2020, investments in supermarkets, hypermarkets and food discount stores reached a record 21% of total European retail activities, up from the five-year average of 7%.

Despite the decline in retail sales growth in 2020, the Food & Grocery sector increased by 7.5% and is expected to grow at least 2.2% annually over the next five years.



In Italy, the national brands, the best known in the area, proved to be successful. Neighborhood trade also contributed to this growth, essential during lockdowns and privileged over online deliveries.

Conad recorded growth of 7.4%, with the opening of 40 stores while Coop follows with 6.8% and 74 new openings. Furthermore, the growth of the discount sector, Lidl and Aldi is also interesting.

As for the countries of the rest of Europe, Germany was the largest investment market in Food & Grocery with 3.1 billion euros last year, followed by the UK with 1.7 billion euros and Spain. with 675 million euros.

Over the years, the experience of corporate real estate in the retail sector has been consolidated: we have in fact contributed to the development and consolidation of major brands in the large-scale retail sector.

To find out more about the operations we followed, among our case histories you will find some projects related to this sector.