Our business model is built on scale advantages, efficiency, and customer focus. We interact with our customers both online and through physical touchpoints, including our field sales teams, customer service departments, and our wholesale locations.
Depending on the size and needs of our customers, we provide both delivery and self-service solutions, ensuring that each customer receives the level of support and convenience that best suits their business.
In our accessible self-service wholesale locations, customers benefit from the extensive expertise of our employees and a distinctive, competitively priced assortment. Through efficient store operations, convenient opening hours, and the support of our central logistics network, we are able to achieve healthy returns in this channel as well.
Within our delivery business, customers place virtually all of their orders online through sligro.nl and sligro.be.
There, they have access to a broad product range and can obtain support both online and through our customer service teams. The combination of market-based delivery fees, a highly efficient logistics operation driven by scale, and a strong purchasing position enables us to generate attractive returns.
Achieving synergy lies at the heart of our business model. We are not a group of separate companies, but one integrated organization with overlapping customer and distribution channels. We leverage our scale and centralized processes to realize cost advantages, while always remaining attentive to local customer needs.
Our central distribution center in Veghel plays a key role in the efficiency and effectiveness of logistics across the Group, helping us translate our scale into tangible cost benefits. The most efficient supply chain not only provides advantages in terms of cost and service quality but also creates opportunities for greater sustainability.
Through continuous innovation, we keep developing our business model. We invest in digitalization, data and AI, new products and services, and the sustainability of our operations.
We operate in a highly competitive market where cost inflation can only partly be passed on through sales prices. Maintaining a sharp focus on cost control and efficiency is therefore deeply embedded in our business model. We benefit from an integrated approach to procurement, logistics, data, and technology, supported by a powerful network of self-service and delivery wholesalers.
This synergy drives efficiency and cost advantages, while innovation in digitalization, automation, exclusive brands, and sustainability ensures that our business model remains future-proof. Together, these elements form the engine of value creation for customers, suppliers, employees, and shareholders.
Our commercial systems, data platforms, and routes to market can be deployed across both countries and all channels, and are tailored to the specific needs of individual customers. While preferences and consumption habits within the foodservice markets of the Netherlands and Belgium sometimes differ, we also see many similarities and opportunities to realize synergies.
Our technology infrastructure and data management are organized centrally, while customer interactions remain local. We believe that data-driven decision-making is a crucial competitive advantage and that artificial intelligence will enable us to unlock even greater opportunities in the years ahead.
Exclusive brands, smart pricing strategies, and compelling promotions strengthen our competitive position. Our industry specialists, many of whom have experience as chefs or entrepreneurs themselves, provide personal engagement and tailored advice. In addition, we invest in inspiration labs, concept development, training programs, and trend tours to continually inspire and support our customers.
This is how we are 'helping every professional in food truly get ahead'.
We predominantly source products directly from suppliers for both our Dutch and Belgian operations. In addition, our membership of Superunie enables us to achieve significant purchasing advantages on foodservice products that overlap with the retail sector.
International sourcing is becoming increasingly important in our industry. Through Superunie, we had already established a degree of international purchasing leverage, but with the creation of the international buying alliance Vasco International Trading B.V. in 2025, the scale required to strengthen our negotiating position, particularly for A-brands, has been established. Through this combined procurement strategy, we achieve an effective balance between synergy, scale advantages, and local relevance within our assortments.
Together with our own production companies and fresh food partners, we are able to offer distinctive products to all our customers. In addition, our extensive range of high-quality and innovative Exclusive Brands gives our formats a strong point of differentiation in the market. These Exclusive Brands are typically developed in close cooperation with our suppliers and are built on long-term partnership relationships.