A welcome trend whereby tourist arrivals and related travel remittances continue to grow year on year in post-pandemic Greece has attracted the attention of, among others, the country’s supermarket chains.
According to market analysts, although the greater Athens and Thessaloniki areas still account for more than 50% of turnover and consumption in the Greek retail non-durables sector – particularly foods – the double-digit growth of retail chain turnover in island regions has firms looking to follow the droves of holiday-makers to those destinations.
While overall turnover in Greece increased by a notable 9.3% in 2023, the figures for the large island of Crete, on the one hand, and the islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas, on the other, were 12.9% and 14.0%, respectively.
According to European supermarket magazine, Sklavenitis, which became the largest supermarket chain in Greece following its takeover of Marinopoulos in 2017, reported a turnover of €3.98 billion in 2021, a 5.1% increase on the previous year. EBITDA for the year totaled €292.7 million, up from €261.4 million a year earlier.
Sklavenitis boasts 523 stores in Greece as of 2021. The supermarket chain can trace its history to 1954 in Petralona when the brothers Spyros and Yiannis Sklavenitis and their friend Miltiadis Papadopoulos founded a wholesale company.
