German grocery operators are amongst the largest and most successful in Europe, and once you walk into a store, it’s easy to see why. Their stores are built for more than just completing a weekly shop and it’s a format that many Irish retailers are now following.

Large bakeries at the entrances enticing customers in with the smell of fresh baking bread throughout the day, a vibrant farmers market style setting overflowing with local and exotic fruit and veg.

Long service counters provide personalised advice, and offer a selection of delicatessen meat specialties, bakery items, premium cheeses, fresh fish, and more. Specialty pop-ups such as sushi counters or freshly squeezed juices. And always a cafe, giving customers a chance to sit and enjoy coffee and ready-made snacks – a reason to stay rather than just pass through the store.

Every one of those areas is a designed to capture the customer for longer – more time in store means a bigger basket, and a bigger basket means a tenant that’s more resilient, and more valuable to have anchoring a property, than a bare-bones discounter offering price and speed alone.

That’s the logic sitting underneath Greenman OPEN and NEXT’s core investment thesis. As mentioned in our H1 2026 European Grocery Retail report, more than half of German retail transaction volume in Q1-26 went into food-anchored assets, with investors drawn to the format’s mature tenant base, strong covenants and long leases rather than any promise of rapid growth. Across Greenman’s funds the weighted average remaining lease term on grocery-anchored assets exceeds eight years – that’s the long-term income planning that investors are paying for.

The stronger that format, the stronger the case for the real estate underneath it, and the more secure the income it generates over the length of a lease.

It’s easy to walk past a well-run supermarket without noticing any of this, but for a fund built around grocery-anchored real estate, the deli counter and the bakery aren’t retail details – they’re a meaningful part of why the lease is worth what it is.

This update is for information purposes only. Shareholders in Greenman OPEN are not required to act upon any of the information contained in this update.

This update includes forecasts, forward-looking statements and estimates. There is a significant risk that targets and milestones mentioned in this update may not be met or may not be met in the expected timeline and the performance of Greenman OPEN may be affected if these targets are not met.

This update also includes current and historic information. Historic data and therefore past performance is not a good predictor of future performance.

Nothing in this update should be considered as investment advice or as a recommendation to invest.

Further Information

if you would like further information, please feel free to contact our investor’s team at [email protected]