PLANCHE 01 — HOOK · REF: BF-ARCHIVE-2026

Beyond Facing — Archive

50+ daily intelligence briefs.
3 free this month.
The rest is for members.

Beyond Facing covers European and global grocery — format moves, pricing strategy, supply chain shifts, competitive expansion. Published daily, archived here. The last 3 issues are always free. Everything else requires a membership.

3 issues free this month — rotating weekly

PLANCHE 02 — ISSUE GRID · REF: BF-ARCHIVE-2026

BEYOND FACING — RECENT ISSUES 15 issues

The European Hypermarket is Dead. What's Replacing It Will Define the Next Decade.

European hypermarkets are closing at 200+ per year. In their place: grocerants, dark stores, and proximity formats. The next 20 years of European grocery.

Read issue 15 →

🇫🇷 FR FREE

Casino Group: France's Most Complex Retailer is Running Out of Time

EUR 9.6B in net debt. 4 formats. A restructuring that will determine whether France has 3 or 4 national grocers in 5 years.

Read issue 14 →

🇨🇭 CH FREE

Migros Switzerland: The Cooperative Model That Hasn't Changed Since 1942

CHF 30B in revenue, federated cooperative structure, owns its own bank. Migros is structurally impossible to acquire — or replicate.

Read issue 13 →

Jumbo Netherlands: The Dutch Supermarket That Decided to Beat Amazon on Convenience

Jumbo launched same-day delivery to 60% of the Dutch population in 6 months. Albert Heijn is now scrambling to copy it. Here's why.

Read issue 12 →

Carrefour's AI Pricing Engine: The French Grocer That's Quietly Becoming Europe's Most Data-Driven Retailer

Carrefour's AI pricing engine reprices 8,000 SKUs every 6 hours. Year one result: +1.2% net margin. That's EUR 240M improvement.

Read issue 11 →

Lidl's European Expansion: How Germany's Most Relentless Discounter is Winning in Markets It Abandoned a Decade Ago

Lidl re-entered France in 2012 and became #2 by store count. It re-entered Italy in 2016 and is now #3. The re-entry playbook, deconstructed.

Read issue 10 →

🇩🇪 Global

Aldi Global's 400-Store Expansion: The Format That's Winning Europe's Grocery Wars

Aldi opened 400+ net new stores in 2025, pushing to 13,500+ globally. The expansion is accelerating — and it's not about price anymore.

Read issue 9 →

🇺🇸 Global

Costco Global: Why $192M for One Warehouse Makes Perfect Sense

Costco spends $192M to open a new warehouse. Most grocers spend $8-15M. The math only works because of one number: 92.3%.

Read issue 8 →

Tesco's UK Turnaround: The Numbers Behind the Comeback

Tesco's operating margin hit 5.8% in FY2025. Up from near-zero in 2014. The 11-year recovery story — and what's still broken.

Read issue 7 →

Spinneys Dubai: The Gulf's Most Sophisticated Grocery Operation

74 stores, $272M revenue, 30-country import network. Spinneys is the Gulf's most sophisticated grocery operation — and it's just getting started.

Read issue 6 →

M&S Food Hall: The UK's Most Profitable Square Footage

6,000 sq ft generating GBP 4,200 per sq ft annually. The M&S Food Hall format is the most profitable grocery square footage in the UK — by far.

Read issue 5 →

🇦🇺 Australia

Woolworths Australia: Building the Fresh Food Moat Brick by Brick

Woolworths has operated at a structural premium in Australian grocery for over a decade. The moat took $4B+ for competitors to try and breach.

Read issue 4 →

Alibaba's Hema: The Format Nobody in Europe Wants to Admit Works

Alibaba's Hema operates 300+ stores across 30 Chinese cities, generating $14B annually. The data collection engine that European grocers cannot legally replicate.

Read issue 3 →

Walmart: $275B in Grocery and Nobody Takes It Seriously

Walmart does $275B in grocery. More than Portugal's GDP. Yet analysts still treat it as a US discount retailer. Here's what they're missing.

Read issue 2 →

Amazon Fresh Buries the 72-Store Experiment

Amazon closed all 72 Amazon Fresh locations in the US. The format failed — but the real threat to European grocers is what comes next.

Read issue 1 →

PLANCHE 03 — FOUNDING CTA · REF: BF-ARCHIVE-2026

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