“Are we dealing with a foreign company that has come to France to exploit people and throws them away thanks to legal measures, or a company that really wants to create activity? » This question, Johann Tchissambou, the secretary of the social and economic committee (CSE) of Getir in France, asks it every day. And in particular since May 17, after the express home shopping delivery company (which swallowed its competitors Gorillas and Frichti in December 2022), presented a restructuring plan leading to the elimination of half of the group’s workforce in France.
The announcement left the 1,824 employees totaled by Getir, Gorillas and Frichti in France, “upset”, “psychologically weakened. » Some had recently contracted “mortgages and big credits for their car”, according to this CFDT union representative. Thursday 1er June, Mr. Tchissambou will have the beginning of a response during the first negotiation meeting concerning the terms of the PSE between the trade unions and the management of this Turkish group founded in 2015 and arrived in France in June 2021.
The situation is emblematic of this sector of activity called “quick commerce” where players disappear with the same speed with which they arrived two years ago to hold up the French food distribution market. Their promise to deliver groceries from warehouses called “dark stores” in a few minutes, seven days a week, had won over a population of young workers accustomed to buying on their smartphones, and confused conventional brands.
Revenue does not cover costs
Of the ten or so players aiming to conquer major urban centers, only two groups remain in France today in a niche of express shopping which represents, at the end of 2022, according to the research firm Circana, 2.3% of sales of the local circuit at the end of 2022: the German Flink and the Turkish Getir (which controls Gorillas and Frichti). In the grip of economic difficulties and insufficient financing, the first announced, on May 24, to the staff representatives that it was going to carry out a restructuring by reducing its workforce. And the second obtained from the Paris Commercial Court on May 2 the opening of receivership proceedings with regard to his three companies, accompanied by a three-month observation period, after having filed a declaration cessation of payments on April 18.
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