Supermarket chain PLUS will finalize the merger with Coop on Tuesday after four years. Then the last small Coop supermarket will be transferred. That does not mean that Coop will disappear from the streets. Two nationally lesser-known chains are continuing the name.
Van Tol Retail has already taken over a number of Coop branches from PLUS. It also connects other stores under the Coop flag, with a subtle reference to its own name in the logo. “We are continuing the Coop brand name and associated logo,” says Van Tol Retail. The company now has eleven Coop branches and a few more will be added in September.
PLUS decided in mid-last year that it would not convert seventy Coop stores into PLUS supermarkets, but would sell them off. This concerns the smaller stores, the neighborhood supermarkets. In addition to Van Tol, Boon is also a party that believes in this.
Boon will take over the last Coop store from PLUS on Tuesday and will then have added more than thirty to its own store portfolio. “To speed up that takeover process, we have agreed with PLUS that we can continue to use the Coop name until mid-2027.” But this chain, unlike Van Tol, will ultimately say goodbye to it.
“We have immediately converted a number of stores into a Boon’s Markt or Boon’s Dagmarkt,” says a spokesperson. Where dozens of Coop stores were too small for PLUS, some of them are actually a larger store for Boon. These continue as Boon’s Markt and the smaller stores as Dagmarkt.
PLUS, which merged with Coop in 2021, now has 442 stores left. “Almost two hundred Coop stores have been converted,” says a spokesperson. In the meantime, some PLUS stores have also been transferred to other entrepreneurs. The Coop stores that PLUS has divested have gone to SPAR, Vomar and Nettorama in addition to Van Tol and Boon.
PLUS, after the merger with Coop and the divestment of dozens of stores, is still number three in the Netherlands, after Albert Heijn (AH) and Jumbo. According to the latest figures from market research NIQ, AH now has 1,199 stores. Jumbo follows at a suitable distance with 693. Both Boon and Van Tol want to continue to grow. Boon under its own name and Van Tol Retail with the day store and the Coop formula.