Distribution: Système U recruits its future Deputy Managing Director at Biocoop

The group of independents Système U, the fourth player in French food retailing, announced Monday evening August 21 the appointment "effective in early 2024" of Sylvain Ferry, former Carrefour and until then Executive Director General of Biocoop, to the position of deputy general manager.

Since 2021, Sylvain Ferry has held the position of Managing Director of Biocoop, the leading network of stores specializing in the sale of products from organic farming in France. An agronomist by training, the 53-year-old manager began his career “within the food industry in the Doux group”, before a passage of “24 years at Carrefour”, indicates System U in its press release. He "will thus succeed Antoine Brieu" in this position, who will "become partner-owner of an independent store of the cooperative by 2024".

System U, like the sector leader E. Leclerc or the third player Intermarché, is organized on a cooperative trade model in which the store owners are independent but group together and pool their resources and know-how under the same brand. Its CEO since May 2018 is Dominique Schelcher, elected for a six-year term and operator of a store in Fessenheim, in the Haut-Rhin.

Système U boasts 1,702 points of sale under the Hyper U, Super U, U Express and Utile brands throughout France, employing more than 73,000 employees. In large food distribution, it is overtaken by E. Leclerc, Carrefour and Intermarché, but weighs more than Auchan, Lidl or Casino. The Federation of Cooperative and Associated Commerce (FCA), which represents traders operating their stores under a cooperative model, claimed at the end of June that this form of commerce had recorded in 2022 an “exceptional turnover of 176.5 billion euros. i.e. growth of 8.3%” and this, while sales in the retail trade as a whole contracted by 1.8%.