Tesco continues F&F international expansion

Supermarket giant Tesco has opened its first franchise stores

in Europe for its clothing brand, F&F, in Switzerland and Gibraltar.

In Switzerland, the supermarket has partnered with Coop, the country’s second biggest retailer, to open seven new stores in the Zurich area with plans to open more Swiss stores in the future. The shop-in-shop franchises are all within Coop’s hypermarket stores and its Coop City department stores.

Additionally, the brand has also recently opened two stores in Gibraltar, in conjunction with franchise partner Pisa International. The two stores, which include the first F&F Kids store, opened earlier this month.

Jason Tarry, chief executive of F&F said: “F&F has performed really strongly over the last twelve months, so we’re delighted to announce these new franchise agreements in Switzerland and Gibraltar, our first franchise stores in Europe.

“These partnerships enable us to operate in markets we don’t already have a presence in and benefit from the local expertise of our franchise partners. We now have more than 30 franchise stores internationally and we’ll be looking to open even more in the coming months to help grow the F&F brand and offer it to even more customers.”

The new store openings in Europe follow successful franchise agreements in Central Asia and across the Middle East, following the opening of its first franchise stores in Saudi Arabia in May 2012. F&F now operates a total of 32 franchise stores with more planned in the coming months, and is sold in 16 countries, including standalone stores in the Czech Republic and Poland.

In the UK F&F sales exceeded over 1 billion pounds last year and increased by 9 percent.