OREANDA-NEWS. On 14 May 2008 was announced, that Odessa Governor Deputy Mr. Chorbadzhy and Axel Hluchy, Managing Director of METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine cut the symbolic ribbon at the opening ceremony of the second METRO Cash & Carry wholesale store on Marshala Zhukova Avenue.

Together with the first store opening in Odessa on Ovidiopol road in April 2005 the company’s total investment into the region exceeds UAH 250 Mio. The new wholesale store employs 350 local citizens thus bringing the total number of new jobs created by the company to 700 in the region.

With construction works launched in January 2008 the general contractor Scorpion-RP together with 6 more local construction and design companies built the new store located on a land plot of 3.4 hectares. 

The new METRO Cash & Carry wholesale store spans an area of 12 000 square meters offering a wide assortment of 28 000 food and non-food products on a net sales area of 7 400 square meters. The store offers its customers a spacious parking for 252 cars, of which 86 are roofed.

Sourcing over 90% of its food and non-food products from over 1 200 Ukrainian producers, distributors and importers METRO Cash & Carry intends to intensify the cooperation with local suppliers. Currently the company cooperates with 23 local companies.

“Successful operations of our first store in Odessa prove that our business concept is highly accepted by our professional customers. By opening our second store closer to the southern coastline of Odessa we substantially reduce driving time for our HoReCas and traders from nearby summer resorts. ” – said Axel Hluchy.

Before the opening ceremony the owners of local restaurants, hotels, bars, catering companies and traders visited the HoReCa and Traders Conference. The participants learnt about the METRO wholesale formula, loyalty programs and special services developed exclusively for HoReCa customers and traders. For them the company organized product and wine tasting, in particular presenting the products sold under own brands Aro and HoReCa Select.  

Tomorrow, at 6:00 am the store will open its doors for its first customers for which METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine has prepared over 300 top product offers.

Within 5 years of operations in Ukraine METRO Cash & Carry opened 18 wholesale stores: three in Kyiv, two in Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk, one in Kharkiv, Odesa, Lviv, Luhansk, Kryvyi Rih, Poltava, Vinnytsa, Zaporizhya, Chernivtsi, Mykolaiv and Rivne. Having invested into the Ukrainian economy ? 339 Mio METRO Cash & Carry created over 6 100 new jobs for Ukrainians. In 2007 METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine achieved sales of EUR 818 Mio.