Why the American investment fund Apollo is buying France’s retail gem, Grand Frais

By Ghislain Journé

Is a Quiet Revolution Under Way in French Food Retail?

While Auchan, one of the country’s most emblematic supermarket chains, is floundering, Grand Frais is soaring.

On one side: restructuring plans, store closures and financial results described as “severely deteriorated.” On the other: double-digit growth, new store openings, and a business model widely portrayed as a cash machine.

How can two such opposite trajectories coexist in a food retail market that is otherwise stagnating in France? “Our priority is to make people happy, not to make money. But by making people happy, we end up making money,” says Jean-Paul Mochet, chairman of Prosol, the parent company of Grand Frais and Fresh, recently acquired by the American fund Apollo.

Why Grand Frais Feels Radically Different

Making people happy — a bold claim. Yet step inside a Grand Frais store and the gap with traditional big-box retail becomes immediately apparent.

The produce displays are striking, the fruits and vegetables often far superior to what one finds in conventional supermarkets — though with two major caveats: their carbon footprint can be dizzying, and organic products remain marginal. The cheese and dessert counters, by contrast, are undeniably seductive.

As I leave the store, I reconsider the chain’s slogan — “The best market near you” — and find that it almost rings true. Almost. Because the best market will always be the one that connects you directly to local organic farmers, if you are lucky enough to have one.

At Auchan, meanwhile, the company continues to cling to the hypermarket format — stores ten times larger than a Grand Frais. In an age when everything is available online, when consumers no longer want to wander through endless, dispiriting aisles in search of something they can no longer quite define, this choice raises questions. Even its new slogan — “The choice, the right one” — sounds like just that: a slogan.

A Transitional Model for the Future of Food Retail

So how do these mirror-image trajectories signal a deeper shift?

Because as one of the most iconic names in French mass retail struggles for lack of reinvention, Grand Frais may be sketching the outlines of a new model — a form of transitional retail that reconnects the farm to the plate. Grand Frais illustrates how French food retail may be evolving toward a more product-driven, transition-oriented model.

To be sure, between produce sourced from Kenya, Peru or Tanzania and a still timid organic offering, there is a long road ahead. But a company that works directly with 700 producers, that claims the DNA of a producer rather than a distributor, and that operates with a genuine culture of product and supply chains, possesses structural foundations that are compatible with a transition-oriented future.

Jean-Paul Mochet’s own trajectory — having led Franprix and Monoprix — invites cautious optimism. In 2022, he was already calling for radical ecological action, advocating what he termed “alter-consumption”: buying less, but better. “The future of retail is sincerity,” he said recently, echoing the founding credo of Denis Dumont: making the best products accessible.

But if we are to be truly sincere today, organic food can no longer be treated as optional.

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