Minimal (retail chain)
Until 2006 , the Rewe Group operated supermarkets in Germany and Poland under the brand Minimal ( spelling : miniMAL ) that belonged to the category of full- range or full-range suppliers .
history
The first Minimal was opened in 1973 by the Bad Homburg Leibbrand Group , which also included chain stores such as HL-Markt, Penny-Markt and toom . 50 percent of this was taken over by Rewe in 1974 and finally in 1989. The Minimal markets initially had a sales area of around 800 to 1000 square meters, which was extraordinarily large for the conditions at the time. Later, most markets had a sales area of around 1,200 to 1,500 square feet. In 1990 the then still West German supermarket chain began to expand in the new federal states . In 1990 the first minimal store was opened in Wanzleben ( Saxony-Anhalt ).
In 2004 and 2005, Rewe converted most of its smaller branch supermarkets from the sales lines HL-Markt, Stüssgen , Kafu-Markt and Otto Mess into minimal stores. Since then, the Minimal brand was no longer reserved for the larger Rewe store supermarkets, but also included stores with sales areas of 400 square meters or more.
In January 2006, the Rewe Group decided to combine all full-range supermarkets in Germany, regardless of their size and regardless of whether they are run as branches or by independent retailers, under the previously reserved brand Rewe. As part of this brand strategy, on September 25, 2006, around 3,000 supermarkets were simultaneously converted to the new Rewe retail brand.
Poland
The first Minimal branch in Poland was opened in 1996. In 2006 the stores were switched to the Rewe sales brand Billa, which is widespread in Austria , so that since the end of 2006 there have been no minimal stores in Poland either.