German Prime Retail

Part 2. The Big Four: How Four Groups Came to Sell Nine in Ten Euros of German Groceries

In September 2014, Germany's competition authority concluded that four retail groups accounted for around 85% of the country's food retail market. On 28 September 2026 the same authority published a new figure: more than 90%. EDEKA, the Schwarz Group, REWE and ALDI now take more than nine out of every ten euros that pass through the tills of German food retailers. For an investor in supermarket property, that concentration is the foundation of the investment case — and the central fact of every lease negotiation.
Key takeaways
• EDEKA (about 30%), the Schwarz Group (about 25%), REWE (about 22%) and ALDI (about 15%) together hold more than 90% of German food retail (Bundeskartellamt, 2025 data).
• None of the four is listed on a stock exchange: two are cooperatives of independent merchants, two belong to foundations set up by their founding families, and all four invest with a horizon measured in decades.
• Concentration gives landlords tenants of rare financial strength — and gives those tenants the upper hand in negotiating the lease.
• The competition authority now reviews further consolidation site by site; with planning law also restricting new large stores (Part 3), existing well-located stores are hard to replace.

Concentration keeps rising, and the four compete on site, size and access

Exhibit 1. Four unlisted groups share more than 90% of German food retail
Group
Share of German food retail, 2025
Latest reported revenue and stores
Ownership model
EDEKA group (EDEKA, Netto Marken-Discount)
about 30%
€77.3 bn (2025); 10,871 stores, all in Germany, incl. 4,433 Netto
Cooperative group owned by independent merchants through regional cooperatives
Schwarz Group (Lidl, Kaufland)
about 25%
€185.6 bn worldwide, incl. recycling and production (year to February 2026); about 14,500 stores in 33 countries
Owned through the Dieter Schwarz Foundation
REWE group (REWE, Penny)
about 22%
€100.4 bn total external revenue in 21 countries, incl. travel, DIY and wholesale; Germany €69.1 bn (2025)
Cooperative of independent merchants
ALDI (ALDI Nord, ALDI Süd)
about 15%
ALDI Nord more than €31 bn and 5,526 stores in 8 countries (2025); both groups together €112 bn (2023)
Controlled by family foundations
Sources: Bundeskartellamt press release of 28 September 2026; company reports and trade press. Group revenues are worldwide unless stated and include non-food businesses where noted.
Concentration is still rising, and the competition authority now watches it store by store. The authority's 2014 figure came from a sector inquiry into the buying power of food retailers; its 2026 figure came from a merger decision. In September 2026 it cleared EDEKA's takeover of 178 stores of the regional chain tegut only after EDEKA committed not to acquire 24 others for four years; without that commitment, the authority found, the deal would have significantly impeded competition in 34 regional markets.
The same merger review explains why location matters so much to the four: competition for shoppers, the authority notes, takes place above all locally. It also found that the groups monitor one another intensively and that, on part of the range, their prices are largely identical — price changes have often started at ALDI, and lately also at Lidl. Where prices converge, retailers compete on what a rival cannot copy overnight: the site, the size of the store and how easily customers can reach it.

Scale, stable cash generation and patient owners make strong tenants

For a landlord, the four groups combine the qualities that make a tenant valuable over a 15-year lease: national store networks, large and stable cash generation, and owners who are not driven by quarterly results. The groups have been tested repeatedly: they have traded through currency reforms, recessions, reunification and a pandemic. EDEKA's origins go back to the purchasing cooperatives of the 1890s, REWE was founded in 1927, ALDI grew from a family shop opened in 1913, and the Schwarz Group traces its history to 1930.
Ownership reinforces this: none of the four needs the stock market, and all of them invest in their stores with a horizon measured in decades. EDEKA and REWE are cooperatives: a large share of their supermarkets — at EDEKA the great majority — are run by independent merchants who are members of the group and depend on its brands, buying and logistics. The Schwarz Group and the two ALDI groups belong to foundations set up by their founding families.

Concentration hands tenants the upper hand in lease negotiations

Concentration cuts both ways: a tenant that controls a quarter of the national market negotiates from strength. Leases for new stores are drafted largely on the retailer's template: indexation that applies only once inflation passes a threshold, and often passes on only part of it; roof and structure left with the landlord (Part 10); the right to sublet within the group, including to the independent merchant who runs the store; and, occasionally, special termination rights. Each group has its own template and each store its own negotiation, which is why there is no market-standard German food-retail lease (Part 7) — and why the wording matters as much as the logo.
For EDEKA and REWE stores in particular, investors should check who the tenant is: a lease with the group company is a markedly stronger covenant than a lease with an individual merchant. Leases are frequently signed by a group company — at EDEKA one of its six regional companies, at REWE usually its national store company, REWE Markt GmbH — which then sublets the store to the independent merchant who runs it.

Competition law makes sites scarce and narrows the landlord's options

Germany's competition authority has repeatedly limited the big groups' appetite for each other's stores. When EDEKA sought to buy Kaiser's Tengelmann, the authority prohibited the deal in 2015; it went ahead only after a ministerial authorisation in 2016 and a settlement that gave some stores to REWE. When the Real hypermarket chain was broken up in 2020–2021, buyers including Kaufland, EDEKA and Globus were allowed to take over stores only after site-by-site review: the authority tested each store against the area where 90% of its customers live, and Kaufland dropped nine of the 101 stores it had sought. The tegut decision of 2026 follows the same logic.
For investors, this makes a well-located store let to one of the four more than income: it is a scarce position that its tenant cannot easily replace. Because the leading groups cannot simply buy competitors' locations, they grow by building new stores, enlarging existing ones and renewing leases on the sites they already trade from.
The dependence runs both ways: a landlord whose tenant leaves has few realistic successors, and competition law can rule out the most natural one. The tegut decision shows how far that reaches: for four years, no part of the EDEKA group — regional companies and independent merchants included — may acquire the 24 excluded sites or sign a lease or follow-on lease for them. For the landlords of those sites, the market leader has been taken out of the bidding.

Beyond the four, drugstores complete the most stable retail-park mix

In our experience, the combination that draws the most visitors to a food-anchored retail park — and produces the most stable rental income — is a drugstore next to a supermarket and a discounter.
Germany's food retail does not end with four names: regional chains such as Globus and Norma, organic specialists such as Alnatura and, above all, the two leading drugstore chains complete the landscape. dm turned over €19.2 billion, including VAT, in the financial year to September 2025 from about 4,200 stores in 14 countries, 2,154 of them in Germany; Rossmann €16.6 billion in 2025 from 5,209 stores, 2,342 of them in Germany.

Implications for investors

1. Favour stores the tenant cannot easily replace. The competition authority limits the four's appetite for each other's stores, so they grow by building new stores, enlarging existing ones and renewing leases on the sites they already trade from. A well-located store let to one of them is therefore a scarce position.
2. Underwrite the lease and its signatory, not the logo. Each store's lease is negotiated separately, largely on the retailer's own template, and for EDEKA and REWE stores a lease with the group company is a markedly stronger covenant than one with an individual merchant.
3. Ask who could replace the tenant. A landlord whose tenant leaves has few realistic successors, and competition law can rule out the most natural one — as the tegut decision did for four years at 24 sites.
Assessing the tenant of a German supermarket:
• Which group operates the store, and which legal entity actually signed the lease?
• For EDEKA and REWE: is the tenant a group company or the independent merchant — and if the merchant, does the group stand behind the lease?
• How long has the group traded on this site, and how does the store rank in its catchment?
• What do the indexation, cost-allocation, subletting and competition-protection clauses say?
• Are there neighbouring tenants — drugstore, discounter, bakery — that support footfall?
Sources: Bundeskartellamt, press releases of 24 September 2014 (sector inquiry), 1 April 2015 (EDEKA/Kaiser's Tengelmann), 22 December 2020 (Real: Kaufland, Globus) and 28 September 2026 (EDEKA/tegut); Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs, ministerial authorisation (March 2016); EDEKA, REWE Group, Schwarz Gruppe, ALDI Nord, Rossmann and dm annual figures as reported by the companies and LEBENSMITTEL PRAXIS (2025–2026); company histories published by EDEKA, REWE Group, ALDI and the Schwarz Group; ALDI combined figure for 2023 as reported by Supermarkt Inside (June 2024); BNP Paribas Real Estate, Grocery Investment Market Germany Q4 2025 (lease terms); Gordon Real Estate Group experience.
Photo: Michael Förtsch / Unsplash
This article is general information and not investment advice. Company figures are as published by the companies or reported in the trade press on the dates stated.
2026-10-09 12:11