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Atacadão, a cash-and-carry chain created in Brazil, became a central piece of Carrefour’s global strategy. The model of selling cheaply in large volumes became so strong that the French group took the Brazilian brand to France itself in 2024, where Atacadão landed in Greater Paris amid protests from local residents and politicians.
On June 20, 2024, Thursday, the French group Carrefour inaugurated in Aulnay-sous-Bois, in Greater Paris, about 16 kilometers from the center of the capital, the first store of the Brazilian brand Atacadão in France. The event marked a symbolic moment: the cash-and-carry model created and consolidated in Brazil, based on selling cheaply, in large volumes and with a lean structure, returned to the country of origin of Carrefour to teach the French themselves to shop like Brazilians. The inauguration, however, took place amid strong opposition from residents, unions, and local politicians.
The resistance was so great that the project was expelled from one city before finding shelter in another. Atacadão today symbolizes a historical reversal in retail: a formula born in an emerging country being exported to a developed economy. What began as a regional chain in Maringá, Paraná, in 1962, became a central piece of the international strategy of one of the largest retail groups in the world, present in various continents with adaptations for each market.
How Atacadão left Maringá and conquered Brazil
Gradually, the chain reached neighboring cities like Cascavel and Umuarama, as well as more distant markets like Campo Grande, in Mato Grosso do Sul, and established a goods transit warehouse in São Paulo, the largest commercial center in the country. In 1991, the company was acquired by the Lima family and executives Farid Curi and Herberto Uli Schmeil, who accelerated its professionalization.
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In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the presence in São Paulo was consolidated, and in 2000 the network reached Pernambuco, expanding in the Northeast. Atacadão gained scale and became a reference in the model known as cash and carry, selling in large volumes at low prices, serving both merchants and final consumers. This format, later dubbed atacarejo in Brazil, would be the great trump card that caught the attention of the French giant.
The purchase by Carrefour and the explosion of growth
At the time, the network had 34 stores, with 17 in the state of São Paulo alone. The transaction transformed Carrefour into the sector leader in Brazil and put Atacadão into a new phase of accelerated growth, which would prove to be one of the most profitable decisions for the French group in recent decades.
The result of this move is impressive. From 34 stores in 2007, the network jumped to almost 400 units nationwide. It is estimated that Atacadão accounts for about two-thirds of Carrefour’s revenue in Brazil, according to data released by the specialized press. It was this overwhelming strength in the Brazilian market that led the group to see the cash and carry model not just as a local operation, but as a strategic asset capable of being replicated worldwide.
The beginning of Atacadão’s international expansion
Atacadão began its internationalization in 2010, when it left the Brazilian market for the first time and opened operations in Colombia, followed in the same year by Argentina, showing that the initial strategy was focused on South America. The Colombian venture, however, was short-lived: in 2012, Carrefour sold its assets in the country to the Chilean Cencosud, which ended up closing the stores, a detail that shows that not all expansion was smooth.
The decisive step came in 2012, with Atacadão’s arrival in Morocco, a market that would become one of the group’s most successful cases outside Brazil. In the following years, the cash and carry model was taken to other countries where Carrefour already had a presence, such as Tunisia, Egypt, Romania, and Spain, always adapting the concept of large stores, low prices, and focus on volume to the local realities of each region.
Why Morocco became the great success story
The wholesale retail occupies exactly the space between traditional wholesale, aimed at merchants and large volumes, and the common supermarket, more convenient but with higher prices. By maintaining a simple structure and aggressive prices, but opening the doors to the final consumer, the format greatly expands the potential market.
In the Moroccan market, the operation is run by the LabelVie franchise, which operates stores of the brand in different cities of the country. In October 2025, the group opened its 20th Atacadão store in Morocco, in the city of Essaouira, with presence in the largest urban and economic centers, such as Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech, and Tangier. The Moroccan success proved that the Brazilian concept had viability far beyond national borders, paving the way for the group’s bolder ambition: Europe itself.
The arrival in France amid protests from residents
The entry of Atacadão in France was anything but smooth. The first city chosen was Sevran, in Greater Paris, but in March 2023 Carrefour abandoned the project after the local mayor created a petition against the store’s installation, calling the idea disastrous. The group then moved to neighboring Aulnay-sous-Bois, where the mayor embraced the proposal, but where opposition also organized.
A local manifesto classified the store as a miserabilist project, criticizing the replacement of shelves with pallets, the lesser diversity of products, and the disadvantage to those using public transport, as the model prioritizes large volumes. The petition, led by Professor Mehdi Chtioui from the left-wing party France Insoumise, gathered only 650 of the thousand signatures intended. Despite the protests, the opening took place, with an investment of about 10 million euros, between 120 and 130 employees, and the presence of Carrefour’s CEO, Alexandre Bompard. According to the newspaper Le Parisien, several residents praised the model and left the store with various packages of products.
The Brazilian model as Carrefour’s global strategy
Carrefour’s great learning was realizing that the greatest asset was not just the Atacadão brand, but the operational logic of the wholesale retail developed and scaled in Brazil. Instead of relying solely on opening stores with the Atacadão name in all countries, the group began to adapt the format for other markets, even when using different brands. In Europe, the main focuses of this strategy are France, Spain, and Romania, with large volume stores, aggressive pricing, and more efficient structures.
The model works especially well in countries with a large portion of the population having tighter incomes and high price sensitivity. For these families, small differences in the price of basic items like rice, oil, meat, and hygiene products make a real impact on the monthly budget. If the consumer perceives significant savings, they are willing to travel further, shop in a less sophisticated environment, and buy in larger volumes. This is the logic that Atacadão exported, transforming a popular Brazilian format into a tool for international competition.
How far the Brazilian brand can go
The growth opportunities are still significant, especially in African and Latin American markets, regions where modern retail has low penetration, average income is expanding, and consumers already show price sensitivity. These factors represent an open field for the cash and carry format in the coming decades, and Atacadão’s structure is well-positioned to occupy it, according to industry analysts.
The central issue defining the network’s horizon goes beyond the number of units or revenue. Atacadão can continue to be a large food retail network or can consolidate itself as a global reference on how to sell with scale, efficiency, and low prices. This definition depends on the choices of the coming years, but the symbolism is already given: a model created in the interior of Paraná today challenges popular retail in several countries, including France itself, the birthplace of Carrefour.
The trajectory of Atacadão, from a store in Maringá in 1962 to an inauguration in Greater Paris in 2024, is one of the most symbolic stories of recent global retail. It shows how a simple formula, selling cheap in large volumes, can be born in an emerging country and become an export product for wealthy economies. The protests in France reveal that this expansion is not free of tensions, but also confirm the weight of a brand that has ceased to be just Brazilian to become global.
Do you usually shop at Atacadão or other cash and carry networks? Do you believe this Brazilian model of selling cheap really has a future in wealthy countries like France, or do the protests have a reason to exist? Leave your comment, share your shopping experience in this format, and share the article with those interested in retail, economy, and Brazilian businesses that have gone global.
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