Trace One and Markant announce new partnership

Trace One, the world’s largest collaborative platform for retailers and FMCG companies, today announced a strategic partnership with multinational retail service provider The MARKANT Group, which collaborate with more than 150 retailers and 14,000 suppliers globally, is adopting Trace One’s Product Lifecycle Management solution for its behind the-scenes subsidiary ZHG (Zentrale Handelsgesellschaft – ZHG – mbH), to boost its private label efficiency, agility and innovation. The news comes on the eve of the biggest annual private label event in Europe, World of Private Label, hosted by the Private Label Management Association (PLMA) International Council on 21-22 May, 2019 in Amsterdam.

As private label sales growth now outpaces national brands, this partnership gives ZHG a timely edge. ZHG administer private label products across various product categories, such as food, near food, animal nutrition and pharmacy categories and will now manage all its private label processes through Trace One’s integrated, streamlined solution.

Aligning ZHG’s trading partners with this solution will make its private label processes more productive, collaborative and proactive. ZHG will save time and effort, and reduce risk by boosting private label information visibility and agility through smooth, robust communication with trading partners. In addition, Trace One will train suppliers to use the solution to efficiently develop and manage private label products.

“Adopting Trace One’s single source of software solutions for Product Lifecycle Management helps ZHG and its partners to smash silos, boost efficiencies and gain a competitive edge in the European retail market,” said Ernst-Joerg Oberhoessel, Sales Director Central Europe, Trace One. “Now Trace One’s digital data management solution gives ZHG greater visibility into its private label processes, and allows seamless collaboration among purchasing, quality management and marketing teams,” said Oberhoessel. “This visibility will also help private label teams to pinpoint and eliminate bottlenecks to accelerate speed to market.”

This partnership also makes it easier for ZHG to delight and attract suppliers. ZHG can use Trace One’s solution to create detailed reports, such as the number of private label products that are vegan, sustainable or derived from a specific country of origin. Smooth, efficient communication among private label partners will help ZHG to proactively enhance product quality, safety and innovation, including in-demand trends like vegan, keto and sustainable.

Private label continues to grow in popularity in Europe, as the latest Nielsen data shows market share increased last year in 12 of 19 European countries, and now stands at 30% or more of total market share in 17 countries.

Meanwhile, unprecedented retail transformation – including e-commerce, legislative changes and consumer demand for corporate social responsibility – means success now requires collaboration, as no company can do it all alone. This partnership with Trace One positions ZHG to increase efficiency, agility and loyalty by collaborating with trading partners to offer exclusive, in-demand private label products.

About The MARKANT Group

The MARKANT Group is a retail service provider that offers a broad portfolio of services that support industrial and retail companies in the food and non-food sectors. Its subsidiary ZHG manages all MARKANT’s private label initiatives. In Germany, six of the top 10 retailers use MARKANT. The company is positioned internationally to support partners in industry and retail throughout Europe. International MARKANT locations include Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and China.

For more information, visit www.markant.com/en