Woolworth Deutschland

German department store chain

Deutsche Woolworth GmbH & Company OHG (commonly known as Woolworth Deutschland or Woolworth GmbH) is a chain of department stores in Germany and was a former subsidiary of the American F. W. Woolworth Company. As of 2022 the chain has more than 570 stores in Germany, 18 in Poland and 2 in Austria, they are aiming to have over 1,000 in the medium term and over 5,000 across Europe in the long term. It was not part of the closure scheme that affected the British Woolworths Group stores, nor is it related to the Australian based Woolworths Group retail group. In July 2021, Woolworths Deutschland purchased the British and Irish Woolworths trademarks, brands, intellectual properties and website from The Very Group for an undisclosed sum.

F. W. Woolworth Co. GmbH was founded in 1927 with its first store in Bremen and was a subsidiary of the American company F. W. Woolworth Company. When still part of the parent company, corporate documents refer to the division as Retail Company of Germany, Inc

In 1968 new company headquarters opened in Frankfurt which served as the HQ for the brand until 2010. By the end of August the Federal Cartel Office approved the acquisition of 71 Woolworth stores by the Schlecker retail chain. In September Woolworth started operating as 162 store chain down from 310. During the insolvency the Austrian branches were separated from the German chain in October and bought by bluO an Austrian financial investor, 9 of the 12 stores were later rebranded to Adler and the others closed. In 2010 Woolworth was sold to HH Holding a subsidiary of the Tengelmann Group (which owns KiK and OBI) and by July 1 the headquarters had moved from Frankfurt to Unna. In September October 2020 the new headquarters opened in Unna located in the Unna/Kamen industrial park, it includes a distribution centre and is over 180,000 square meters, when it opened the complex had around 450 staff and will eventually have over 1,000 staff. Woolworth did not close any stores during the Covid 19 Pandemic and remained relatively unscathed and opened over 100 stores since the start of 2020. During Autumn 2021 the company started working with ImmoScout24 a real estate platform to help find spaces where new stores would work well. Other stores quickly followed in Poznań and Warsaw. The chain returned to Austria in November of 2023 with a store in Eisenstadt.

Since 2016, Woolworth has stopped using environmentally harmful plastic shopping bags and instead uses reusable, PET and paper bags. During the opening of new stores and renovation of old stores new energy efficient LED lights are installed. The headquarters in Unna generates some of its own electricity and heat via a combined heat and power plant. Woolworth uses the principle of core activation to regulate temperature through the buildings.