70% of the Austrian Municipalities Have a Food Retail Chain

About 70% of all Austrian municipalities have at least one food retail chain store. Organised chained retailers are those who have more than 5 outlets and a supraregional relevance in Austria.

About 5 130 outlets belonging to the food retail chain can be found in Austria. With a total sales area of more than 2,8 millions sqm the food retail chains can be found in about 70% of all municipalities covering about 92% of the Austrian population. A city person can choose between two or three supermarkets for his daily food purchase. In Vienna for example there are about 750 food retail chain stores, in Graz about 140.

However consumers in about 700 municipalities in Austria have just small shops, which do not belong to a retail chain, or have to purchase their food products in the neighbouring municipality. We are talking about less populated municipalities in Styria (more than 200), in Lower Austria (about 150) and in Upper Austria (125). The organised chained food retail in Austria has reached a market share of about 98%.

From all Austrian states only Vienna and Salzburg had a growth regarding food stores. Most of the 1 000 chained food stores cand be found in Lower Austria. Last year although the most closings of food stores were in Lower and Upper Austria.