Agri-trade stores in northern Europe

The 45 Land & Fritid stores operating in Denmark are an established feature of the home, garden and agricultural market there. The chain started out in Denmark, where its head office is still located, with just four stores in 2002. 14 years later, after pursuing a vigorous expansion strategy going beyond the country's borders, Land & Fritid now has 41 shops in Denmark along with 23 in Sweden and six in Estonia. 136 people are employed in the company's head office alone. The chain's last big expansion target was northern Germany, where it has opened five stores since 2010. These trade under the German name Land & Freizeit. 
Like the Land & Fritid stores in Scandinavia and Estonia, the outlets in Schleswig-Holstein in Germany belong to DLG, one of the biggest agri-trade businesses in Europe, which is based in Denmark. The DLG Group is owned by Danish farmers and operates in a wide range of sectors including agricultural products, retailing, vegetables for the catering trade, energy trading, telecommunications and the sale of pot plants. In 2005, GLD acquired a majority holding in the German company Hauptgenossenschaft Nord of Kiel, and in 2013 a holding in Team AG, which operates 65 DIY stores and over 200 petrol stations in Germany among other activities. This is thus a strong group that is now to be extended further by the small Land & Freizeit chain of rural stores, which also set up its own web shop scanfarm.de in November. The shop is set to go online in Denmark also early this year.
Erik Dalsro Jørgensen, deputy director of the parent company DLG, has his sights set on the target groups that the company sees as its customers: "Agricultural development goes only one way, towards larger and larger farms. That leaves a lot of small hobby and leisure agriculture. We have the hobby segment together with the rural population as our target group." The deputy director is under no illusions regarding the state of the market and has a very realistic take on this: "We still believe that there will be a need for feed and products for hobby, horses and other pets. We do not see that the market is growing, but that it will remain stable in the coming years. On the other hand, we believe that the setup with a combination of physical stores and a web shop is the right setup for us", states Erik Dalsro Jørgensen.

Since the competition situation varies considerably in the countries in which the stores are located, the…