Many people the world over, are sad hearing news that Marinopoulos Supermarkets have filed for bankruptcy but GCT's guest writer Markos Moustalevryas, considered it inevitable.
The internet is ripe with sad reminders that the iconic Greek supermarket chain Marinopoulos has filed for bankruptcy today, but Marinopoulos was not always the friendly-competitor who slashed prices. The supermarket giant obliterated a generation of small grocers and came to epitomise all that is wrong with Greek business practice, in one shopping experience.
The Marinopoulos story begins in the heart of Athens, in 1955 with the enterprising Marinopoulos senior, owning a thriving store near Omonia. Later his four sons went onto open similarly successful grocery stores and later supermarkets. As Greece rose from the ashes of military rule after the dictatorship, so this family owned business began to expand and expand.
Supermarkets were the way of the future, of the New Europe and there was a concentrated effort to contort all of the ‘agora’ (market place) in store. Marinopoulos supermarkets, had fruit and vegetable sections, delis, bakeries and butcheries, they were a one-stop shop.
“The rise of the Marinopoulos Supermarkets marks the decline of the local grocer,” explains Greek anthropologist Theodoros Samios. “The Greek crisis can be paralleled to the inflated balloon of consumerism that the Carefour-Marinopoulos Supermarket chain symbolises and it’s just popped in the faces of 13,000 unfortunate Marinopoulos employees. That is the tragedy here, the Marinopoulos brothers have a fortune of around €270 million but the Marinopoulos employees are expendable,” he says.
A quick scan of the net, explains that Carrefour-Marinopoulos was formed in 1995 as a 50-50 joint venture between the Greek Marinopoulos Group and the French Carrefour Group, but that in 2012 Carrefour decided to withdraw from the joint venture due to the Greek crisis, leaving the Marinopoulos chain vulnerable. Earlier this year the Sklavenetis supermarket chain agreed to buy the Carefour-Marinopoulos hypermarkets but today that deal is in tatters.
Marinopoulos Carefour Supermarkets, are the biggest retail chain in Greece, in terms of both turnover and number of stores operated. With over 700 stores, a revenue of €1.74 billion and profits of €131 million, it is a sad day for 13,000 Greek Marinopoulos employees, whose lives have been abruptly up-ended.
In keeping with this epic Greek tragedy, it will be of little consolation to everyday Greeks to feel sad for the Marinopoulos brand and very easy to wonder what will happen to their 13,000 faithful employees.
