ICA expands ICA To Go

Swedes are showing great interest in ready-prepared food and with the café and
restaurant market growing faster than the grocery sector, ICA now hopes to gain
more customers who eat lunch or breakfast out with its ICA To Go concept. ICA
will open ten new ICA To Go stores over the coming two years and is to expand
the concept as part of existing ICA stores.

“We want to reach customers who want fresh, ready-prepared food to take out and
eat straight away,” says Anders Svensson, CEO of ICA Sweden. “This is a way for
us to increase our presence in towns and cities and make people’s lives easier.”

Over the coming two years ICA will establish ten new ICA To Go stores and will
also establish the concept in a number of existing ICA stores. In some of the
ICA To Go stores ICA will test out a retailer model in which the store is run by
a local retailer.

The ICA To Go concept has been piloted in Stockholm for three and a half years
and customers have appreciated the product range, the prices and the fact that
the food is seen as healthy. The staff of the four pilot stores in Stockholm
also scored top marks in customer surveys.

A new format in Sweden
The grocery sector usually talks of four formats. Until now, ICA has operated
within three of these: ICA Maxi in hypermarkets/superstores, ICA Kvantum and ICA
Supermarket in small supermarkets and ICA Nära in the local market. ICA To Go
operates within the convenience format, a format that has grown substantially in
large parts of Europe in recent years with players such as Pret a Manger in the
UK and 7-eleven.

ICA To Go focuses on high quality fresh ready-prepared meal solutions. ICA To Go
is particularly aimed at breakfast and lunch, but also offers a wide range of
snacks.
For more information
ICA Gruppen press room, telephone: +46 (0)70 253 6660
ICA Gruppen AB (publ) is one of the Nordic region’s leading retail companies,
with around 2,400 of its own and retailer-owned stores in Sweden, Norway,
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Group includes the retail companies ICA
Sweden, ICA Norway and Rimi Baltic, ICA Real Estate, which owns and manages
properties and ICA Bank, which offers financial services to Swedish customers.
The Group also includes the wholly owned portfolio companies Forma Publishing
Group and inkClub and partly owned portfolio companies Cervera, Hemtex and Kjell
& Company. For more information see www.icagruppen.se