OREANDA-NEWS  On 03 October was announced, that Jan Cerman was appointed as new Procurement & Merchandizing Director Food of METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine. He joined the Management Board of METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine succeeding Veronika Puncheva who was appointed Managing Director of METRO Cash & Carry Serbia.

“I am glad to join one of the most dynamically developing countries within METRO Cash & Carry Group. A continued high expansion speed and a strong focus on professional customers will provide our food suppliers with an attractive opportunity to jointly serve our professional customers and thus enjoy an extraordinary further growth over the coming years”, − said Jan Cerman.

Jan Cerman started his career within Makro Cash & Carry Group as Project Manager at Makro Cash & Carry Czech Republic and was appointed Senior Buyer in January 2005. Before joining METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine he held a position as Coach at the Corporate House of Training of METRO Cash & Carry International.

Currently METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine cooperates with 1, 400 suppliers of which 850 are delivering food products. With over 90% of all products being sourced from Ukrainian producers, importers and distributors the company will constantly increase the number of local food suppliers when extending its network to new regions in Ukraine.

Under the lead of Jan Cerman the Food Buying Department will further focus on improving the assortment range and quality of fresh departments serving in particular HoReCa and traders. A special focus will be given to the further development of the own brand range and to intensify sourcing from local suppliers of fruit and vegetables.

Within 5 years of operations in Ukraine METRO Cash & Carry opened 20 wholesale stores: three in Kyiv, two in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa, one in Kharkiv, Lviv, Luhansk, Kryvyi Rih, Poltava, Vinnytsa, Zaporizhya, Chernivtsi, Mykolaiv, Rivne and Ivano-Frankivsk. Having invested into the Ukrainian economy EUR 380 Mio. METRO Cash & Carry created close to 7 000 new jobs for Ukrainians.

METRO Cash & Carry is a sales division of the METRO Group, one of the most important international retailing and trading companies. In 2007, the group reached sales of EUR 64.3 billion. The company has a headcount of more than 280,000 employees and operates about 2,500 outlets in 31 countries. The operating business is performed by the sales brands which operate independently in the market: Metro/Makro Cash & Carry, Real hypermarkets, Media Markt and Saturn – market leader in consumer electronics centers in Europe, and Galeria Kaufhof department stores. More information at: www.metrogroup.de.