Moscow, 10 March 2025 – X5 Group (“X5”, MOEX ticker: X5), a leading Russian food retailer, announces the opening of its 1,500th store under the Okolo brand, located at 36 Novomaryinskaya St., Building 1, in Moscow.
The landmark store, with a selling space of 160 square metres, offers more than 4,000 SKUs of groceries and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), all available for order on the OKOLO.Market online platform. Once the store joined the Okolo franchise, customers gained access to their favourite services offered across X5 stores, including the X5 Club joint loyalty programme, the 5Post delivery service, and coffee stations serving five types of coffee-based drinks at a fixed price of RUB 49.
“The core mission of our franchise is to bring together the energy of private entrepreneurs, the agility of regional distributors, and the expertise of Russia’s leading retailer to create tailored offerings and deliver an exceptional shopping experience in small-format stores. This flexible approach, focused on building long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships with independent entrepreneurs, is what drives the rapid growth of the Okolo franchise. At the same time, the Okolo brand serves as an additional guarantee of a partner’s reliability and financial stability,” said Igor Pletnev, Managing Director of Okolo.
The Okolo franchise is designed for experienced entrepreneurs who already own a retail business. Okolo-branded stores currently operate in 32 regions of Russia: the Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Vladimir, Volgograd, Vologda, Voronezh, Kaluga, Kemerovo, Kirov, Leningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Orenburg, Orel, Ryazan, Samara, Tambov, Tver, Chelyabinsk, and Moscow Regions, Moscow and St Petersburg, the Krasnodar and Perm Territories, as well as the Republic of Adygea, the Republic of Bashkortostan, the Republic of Buryatia, the Republic of Karelia, the Republic of Mari El, the Republic of Chuvashia, and the Republic of Udmurtia.