Chief Financial Officer, METRO AG
💡 Metro AG CFO Eric Riegger on AI, Cybersecurity & Wholesale Growth | CGF 2025
Live from the VusionGroup Podcast Studio at the Consumer Goods Forum 2025, Eric Riegger, Group CFO of Metro AG, breaks down how one of Europe’s largest wholesalers is investing in tech, AI, and cybersecurity to meet rising customer demands and support long-term growth. He shares his retail journey from Lidl and Aldi to Metro (1:00), contrasts the U.S. and European grocery landscapes (2:30), and explains where AI offers the highest ROI today (4:00). Eric also discusses the lessons learned from a disruptive cyberattack (6:00), the cost of recovery (7:30), and how Metro is rebuilding trust throug...
Transcript (43 segments)
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Anne Mezzenga0:08
Hello everyone. Welcome back. This is Omni Talk Retail coming to you live from the Consumer Goods Forum in the Vision Group booth. I am Anne Mezzenga.
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Chris Walton0:17
And I'm Chris Walton. And today we have another special guest. We have Eric Riegger who is the Group Chief Financial Officer at Metro AG. Eric, welcome.
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Eric Riegger0:26
Thank you very much for having me here.
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Chris Walton0:28
Good. Good. Yeah. I'm excited. We've got a CFO with us today and this is a rare treat for us. This is really exciting. So Eric, why don't we start? Why don't you? Your background is fascinating actually. It's steeped in retail, I think is the best way we could put it. Um, why don't you start off but first tell us, we want to get into that but first tell us a little bit about what Metro is and then what is your background as well?
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Eric Riegger0:50
So Metro AG is a largest wholesaler here in Europe. Okay. And operating in 30 countries more than 600 stores doing delivery especially to restaurants and so on. So that's that's our focus.
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Chris Walton1:07
Okay, got it. And what, what, what did you do before you became CFO?
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Eric Riegger1:11
So I worked a lot in discount retail. So I worked more than 20 years for German discount chains. I worked 16 years for Lidl and 5 years for Aldi.
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Chris Walton1:22
Wow. And 10 years of those were in the US if I'm not mistaken, right?
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Eric Riegger1:26
That's correct. So 2015 I went over to the US worked for Lidl US and opened our first in 2017 there. Super exciting time as a kind of a startup there and then I moved 2019 to Aldi in the US which was super exciting of course as you know Aldi's growing really fast in the US. Very very fast, yes. And I was happy to support and accelerate the expansion there. So that was really fascinating time.
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Chris Walton1:54
Yeah, retailer to watch and actually just named a new CEO if I'm not mistaken for the US too, right? So I'm curious before I want to ask you too, 10 years in the US, lots experience in Europe too. What is the biggest difference in your mind between US and European grocery?
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Eric Riegger2:12
Oh, so yeah so actually it's interesting that Aldi, you know, took so long in the US. So Aldi is, you know, many don't know that but 1976 started in the US. So everyone had to get to know Aldi was a kind of the price to value leader and it took a long time that customers really took that up. And of course COVID supported that. Right. This development was much earlier in Europe. You see the Schwarz Group is Lidl and Aldi is much stronger in Europe and you got high market shares already from them accelerating this value proposition. So and therefore coming back to Metro on this one. So we are coming for more from yeah a mixture between retail and wholesale focusing now on wholesale being more discount a bit as well in our assortment with being a lot of private label there.
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Chris Walton3:11
Okay, got it. Well, Eric, I want to take a minute because as Chris mentioned we have a CFO standing between us. There's a lot happening in the technology space especially as it pertains to AI. So I want to ask you how are you? You're the money man. How are you determining where and how you're going to invest in AI in terms of a capital investment right now?
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Eric Riegger3:38
Yeah, so AI is a really key for the future for that's for sure. Like I mentioned before we are in more than 30 countries. Yes. And so we are currently harmonizing all the systems and but also on the same matter we also implementing AI. And AI is accelerating so fast so you have to adjust really quickly. Our investments is currently more in low hanging fruits. So there is a lot of AI applications which have a really good return on investment.
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Chris Walton4:10
Yeah. Of course you have to see how all the software providers like SAP and others support that as well but actually we are focusing on quick quick returns at the moment but of course having long without losing the long term.
Is there anything that you are taking a maybe a riskier bet on or that you're willing to experiment a little bit further with when it comes to technology especially using AI versus those short ROI?
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Eric Riegger4:39
Yeah, so the advantage for Metro is we know our customers really well. Yeah. So we know our, we have all the information compared to retail often you don't know your customers but we have a full program. So we know what they actually have to order, what are they buying from us. So actually we use, we have a lot of data. So we have everything in the Google Cloud already all over our data. So actually we are really progressive on this and using our data in the future and this is why where we really want to invest even more and even quicker.
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Chris Walton5:10
So data analysis, maybe customization, planning and forecasting. Those are areas where you might be willing to take more of a leap with investment.
Okay. Yeah, the big takeaway for me too is that you are investing in AI. I mean I read a report this week that said 8% of CMOs are not investing in AI from a survey and I was like what rock do you need to crawl out from under, you know? I mean that's my opinion but I think you would probably share that same feeling that it's a it's important place to invest at this point.
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Eric Riegger5:38
Yeah, I know that's true and it's actually reflected here in the agenda for the Consumer Goods Forum as well. If you look at the agenda last year there was barely was something regarding AI. Now you look at this one. I was at the NRF in New York in January. Same there. AI is kind of all over the place and of course use cases have to fit for your purpose.
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Chris Walton6:03
Yeah, we always talk about it. Feels like e-commerce in the late 90s again when it comes to AI and attending these conferences and how we're all trying to educate ourselves as quickly as possible.
All right, I want to turn our attention now to another topic of the day that in the last few weeks Anne and I can't stop talking enough about. Like it just keeps popping up and it started over here in Europe and now it seems like it's coming to the States and that is cybersecurity. How have you had to look at cybersecurity differently you know from your role as a CFO here over the last you know year particularly?
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Eric Riegger6:36
Yeah, so actually I actually have to go even further back. Okay. Because cybersecurity a couple of years it was always under the radar. So and but we had a bigger cyber attack two to three years ago and which impacted our business heavily. So we had to change our strategy.
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Chris Walton6:55
Okay. So it really
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Eric Riegger6:57
We were forced to and of course a disadvantage if you have multiple systems so many different interfaces. So actually what we have to do harmonize the systems and then really bring kind of a focus on cybersecurity. It is focus with our CEO as well. So it's kind of there was no chance to avoid this. So if you talk about topics, cybersecurity top top on our list, AI top on our list. So that's a couple of topics we really have to focus on especially on the cybersecurity. We had to learn the hard lesson. It was after I came afterwards but actually I we're still working on it. Yeah.
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Chris Walton7:31
So I got two follow-up questions for you and maybe and I don't know if you know this off the top of your head or not but as I'm curious from a budget standpoint like what percentage increase did you have to put towards cybersecurity in the budget to make sure it doesn't happen again? And then second question, what advice then do you have for the North American you know executives that are watching this in terms of how to deal with this so they don't have to learn the hard way?
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Eric Riegger7:52
So you can't compare what we spent beforehand what we're spending now.
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Chris Walton7:56
Really? It's that different. So different. Wow. So you have set up all this new but I tell you I didn't expect that. You know, on the first and there's no return official return on investment but if you have to learn it the hard lesson just missing out on one, two days maybe more on sales or disruption of your business and our customers relying on our availability. So there is no alternative. So it's avoiding the negative that drives ROI. Wow, that's great point. And maybe even more on that. Like what, what, what is the customer impact? Doesn't have to be specifically to Metro but more broadly. I mean what does that do after a cyber attack like that? I mean are customers hesitant to come back because of privacy concerns? Are they like what's it doing to your customer base and what is that messaging have to be after?
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Eric Riegger8:47
So our customers are really dependent on their daily ordering reliability. So we have a availability of more than 98%. So we want to continue this. If you can't order anymore, you can't pay at your cash out anymore. Yeah. So this is kind of so it was less kind of it was especially reliability. So then of course customer has to see where else can I go shop? Of course we are market leader in most of the markets. So it took a while to actually kind of convince everyone to come back. So but the disruption took a while but we are back on track. Right.
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Chris Walton9:27
But still worth investing in up front with investment. Yeah. And also as a wholesaler you're kind of in the nexus of providing the goods to lots of different you know entities as well. So it's key for you to stay in operation. Right.
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Eric Riegger9:39
Yes.
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Chris Walton9:39
Um well, let's conclude by telling us what brings you here to the Consumer Goods Forum, Eric.
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Eric Riegger9:48
So Metro is a long-term member of the Consumer Goods Forum already. Okay. So we had a lot of initiatives working on um on sustainability IT topics as well in the past. But for us it's a good combination to connect as well. We have a lot of supplier meetings, but also yeah, getting the right network topics we want to discuss here and it's really a good community to meet the right people and to discuss the right topics.
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Chris Walton10:16
Yeah, and what have some of those topics been so far?
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Eric Riegger10:20
So of course for Metro is of course our supplier conversations are key. We are not impacted really by tariffs with the yes, so that's what at least one topic we can avoid, but we have other topics to discuss of course inflation still still a topic and um but also our expansion plans, how we want to move forward to we are on a big growth plan, we growing by seven around 7% every year. We want to continue this and still growing, so this is good exchange with other colleagues here.
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Chris Walton10:57
Yeah, were there any sessions that you've seen or speakers that you've heard from that you're like, all right, that's something that I'm going to take home and think more about.
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Eric Riegger11:06
Yeah, I know I really enjoyed some sessions especially I last one we call this the Walmart session where Catherine did a great job explaining how they all they are retail, but how they connect with their customers and how do they get their workforce in the right spot to work on topics and get them on their right agenda. Really really impressive. And they had some AI examples as well which were kind of impressive as well how things are going to be to market. Really really good
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Chris Walton11:36
Presentation there. And they do it at a scale unlike anyone else. Yeah, so and I from talking to you before we got started too, it sounds like you like to sample the food here too that you like the Asian food samples as well, right Eric?
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Eric Riegger11:48
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. No, actually a friend of us has Vietnamese food over there. Really enjoyed that one. So
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Chris Walton11:55
There's some good food. Yeah, right. Awesome. Awesome. And I'm now a food lover because of course we supplying so many restaurants, so we are really close to our
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Eric Riegger12:05
Customers. So I really enjoy this story back like if you go to Lidl Aldi there's not so much excited if you go to
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Chris Walton12:13
A store. So now with the Metro you got greatest. Somebody's got to do it. Yeah, someone has to do it. That's my favorite thing about working in groceries. You just could feel the product so viscerally, you know, it makes such a difference from a merchandising
Standpoint. All right, well thank you Eric. Thanks so much for joining us, the CFO of the Metro Group. Thanks to the Fusion Group for supporting our coverage here in Amsterdam at the Consumer Goods Forum of 2025 and we'll be back later today. And until then, Anne be careful
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Anne Mezzenga12:36
Out there.