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BUSINESS

Tchibo to try bigger stores

German coffee maker and retailer, Tchibo, is testing a new format involving larger stores with a wider selection of retail goods that are stocked for longer periods.

Published: 6 July 2008 11:21 CEST
Tchibo to try bigger stores
Photo: DPA

The new markets, called “Tchibo World,” will be up to five times larger than the typical Tchibo shop, marketing executive Stefan Pfander told business weekly WirtschaftsWoche.

The first test market has been opened next to big box supermarkets and home improvement stores in the town of Henstedt-Ulzburg in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. If it’s successful, Tchibo plans to take the concept nationwide.

Tchibo is currently undergoing a restructuring which saw profit and turnover fall in the past year. The retailer was under pressure after more and more competitors copied its strategy of stocking low-priced products on a weekly-rotating basis.

As part of the restructuring, Tchibo plans to close around 100 shops and 1,000 of its small store-in-store outlets.

ENVIRONMENT

Sweden’s SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

The Swedish steel giant SSAB has announced plans to build a new steel plant in Luleå for 52 billion kronor (€4.5 billion), with the new plant expected to produce 2.5 million tons of steel a year from 2028.

Published: 2 April 2024 13:44 CEST
Sweden's SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

“The transformation of Luleå is a major step on our journey to fossil-free steel production,” the company’s chief executive, Martin Lindqvist, said in a press release. “We will remove seven percent of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, strengthen our competitiveness and secure jobs with the most cost-effective and sustainable sheet metal production in Europe.”

The new mini-mill, which is expected to start production at the end of 2028 and to hit full capacity in 2029, will include two electric arc furnaces, advanced secondary metallurgy, a direct strip rolling mill to produce SSABs specialty products, and a cold rolling complex to develop premium products for the transport industry.

It will be fed partly from hydrogen reduced iron ore produced at the HYBRIT joint venture in Gälliväre and partly with scrap steel. The company hopes to receive its environemntal permits by the end of 2024.

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The announcement comes just one week after SSAB revealed that it was seeking $500m in funding from the US government to develop a second HYBRIT manufacturing facility, using green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to produce direct reduced iron and steel.

The company said it also hoped to expand capacity at SSAB’s steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa. 

The two new investment announcements strengthen the company’s claim to be the global pioneer in fossil-free steel.

It produced the world’s first sponge iron made with hydrogen instead of coke at its Hybrit pilot plant in Luleå in 2021. Gälliväre was chosen that same year as the site for the world’s first industrial scale plant using the technology. 

In 2023, SSAB announced it would transform its steel mill in Oxelösund to fossil-free production.

The company’s Raahe mill in Finland, which currently has new most advanced equipment, will be the last of the company’s big plants to shift away from blast furnaces. 

The steel industry currently produces 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and shifting to hydrogen reduced steel and closing blast furnaces will reduce Sweden’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent and Finland’s by 7 per cent.

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