Reitan Group - History

History

Company history dates back to 1948, when Odd Reitan's parents, Margit and Ole Reitan, opened their first grocery store: O. Reitan Colonial. In 1972, Odd Reitan followed in his parents' footsteps and opened AS Sjokkpris in Trondheim city centre. By 1976 he had several stores in the region and, after a study-trip to Europe with his father, he decided to start his franchise adventure, as well as expand into real estate.

The low-price franchise concept REMA 1000 was launched in 1979, and continued to expand over the following decade. As of 1985, the official objective was to have a REMA 1000 store in every city with more than 10,000 inhabitants. After reaching this goal, the first REMA 1000 store was opened in Denmark in 1994. Today, Denmark has more than 180 REMA 1000 stores.

In 2000, REMA 1000 International AS merged with Narvesen ASA. In addition to the Narvesen stores, 7-Eleven in Norway and Pressbyrån in Sweden also became part of the Reitan Group through this merger. Nordic and international growth became a natural part of future objectives.

In 2004, all service and kiosk activities in the Reitan Group, such as Narvesen and 7-Eleven, was merged to form Reitan Convenience AS. In 2006, Reitan Convenience bought all shares in Hydro Texaco in Denmark and Norway, and launched service station chain YX Energi.

One year later, Reitan Convenience entered into a collaboration with Shell in Scandinavia on the co-operation and re-profiling of a total of 269 service stations. The YX service stations incorporated by the agreement were re-profiled to Shell stations, while the convenience stores at the stations were re-profiled to 7-Eleven.

2008 became the year when REMA 1000 bought all operations of Lidl in Norway. In 2012, Reitan Convenience bought R-kioski, which is the leading kiosk chain in Finland, and also a large chain in Estonia and Lithuania (R-kiosk and Lietuvos Spauda).