Franprix-Leader Price chooses Trace One to ramp up the development of its private label

March 22, 2010

In a bid to leverage the favorable trend in France towards private label products, Casino Group-owned store chains Franprix and Leader Price have chosen Trace One, Europe's leading e-collaborative platform for managing the development and quality of private label products. Franprix-Leader Price will be able to accelerate and inject superior reliability into the development of their own-branded products by using the Product Specifications solution already in widespread use by French retail stores (Auchan, Carrefour, Casino, Monoprix,

and so on).
This new collaboration confirms Trace One's status as the best-in-class solution in the French market and reinforces its potential to create value for all players in industry and trade.

Franprix-Leader Price leverages Trace One to strengthen the management and development potential of its private label

With 3,500 items representing 10 or so brand names, managing and developing private label is a mission-critical area for the Franprix-Leader Price Group, whose development potential is even higher in the French market.

Franprix-Leader Price has chosen Trace One because:

The solution has already been tried and tested within the Group, since Casino and its suppliers have been using the Product Specifications platform on a daily basis since 2004.
Trace One today is a gold-standard solution used by the entire French market and specifically 80% of private label manufacturers, 71% of which belong to Franprix-Leader Price's network of suppliers.

Trace One offers support for streamlining quality tracking, gaining a competitive advantage when developing new private label products and accelerating the production cycle and time to market. This is exactly what Jean-Michel Duhamel, CEO of Franprix-Leader Price, has in mind:
"In our eyes, Trace One is the ideal partner for staying on the cutting edge of the best practices in the private label market."

For manufacturers and Franprix-Leader Price, Trace One saves time and ensures superior efficiency in their collaboration

"The Trace One platform has already been adopted and put through its paces by most of our suppliers; the solution will give us a faster, more secure way of developing our private label products," explains Patrick Haution, Quality Director at Franprix-Leader Price. Most manufacturers are familiar with and already use Trace One solutions.

With Trace One Product Specifications, manufacturers:

Can rest assured that their private label products will comply with their parent company's quality policy and food safety standards
Can respond more quickly in the event of a warning or food crisis
Can save time by reusing data
Get their products to market more quickly

This collaboration marks a new stage in the process launched by Franprix-Leader Price to optimize the management of its private label. Both store chains had actually already chosen to work with Trace One back in July 2009 when they were setting up the Packaging solution as part of their time-challenged plans to re-design their private label packaging.

"By leveraging our dual business and software skills, we are counting on realizing unique gains for the Franprix-Leader Price Group and its network of manufacturers, most of which are already present on our platform," explains Jérôme Malavoy, CEO of the Trace One Group.

About Franprix-Leader Price

Franprix and Leader Price, specialists in distributing food to supermarkets, are part of the CASINO Group; both chains have forged a solid reputation and are currently undergoing high levels of growth with new store openings in the pipeline.

FRANPRIX: downtown supermarket chain Franprix offers a range of national brands and Leader Price products at discount prices. Franprix is currently branching out from its base in Paris to other major cities in France and has nearly 780 stores. The company's expansion plan is 100 stores a year, with a medium-term aim of 1,000 stores.
www.franprix.fr

LEADER PRICE: after long second-guessing the high growth potential of the discount market, the Casino Group has transformed Leader Price into the market's star performer. With 3,500 private label products, the company offers one of the largest and most competitive ranges in the sector. Its rapidly-expanding network is aiming to achieve 1,000 stores by 2014.
The brand is committed to quality products, and its innovative concept has paid off. In 20 years in business, the company has opened over 580 stores.
www.monleaderprice.fr

About Trace One

Trace One is the European leader in e-collaborative solutions for managing consumer goods products for retailers and manufacturers in all categories.

Created in 2001, Trace One launched the first collaborative online platform in SaaS (Software as a Service) mode for managing the development and quality of private label products.

In 2009, Trace One announced the acquisition of Eqos, a UK enterprise, leader in non-food global sourcing solutions.

Trace One is today the inside partner of retailers and manufacturers to support the development of their private label products and national brands. Trace One’s e-collaborative solutions help to accelerate the development and product innovation, and guarantee quality and food safety.

Trace One’s solutions are adopted by European leading retailers including Auchan, Carrefour Group, Carrefour Spain, Casino, Eroski, Franprix-Leader Price, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, as well as 6200 suppliers in food and non-food sectors, 80% of the private label suppliers to the French market.

Major multinational companies in the FMCG sector also work on Trace One solutions for managing their electronic catalogue: Coca-Cola, Danone, Kraft Foods, L’Oréal, Procter & Gamble, Sara Lee, ...

Trace One Group today has a global presence through its five offices around the world: France, Spain, UK, USA and Hong Kong.

For more information: www.traceone.com