Alex Athanassoulas, President & CEO of STIRIXIS Group, delivering the keynote “Retail in the Perfect Storm” at the Nordic Grocery Store Expo 2026 in Stockholm.
Five forces are changing grocery retail. The opportunity is to decide what the physical store becomes next.
SUMMARY
For more than a century, grocery retail has become increasingly efficient at removing friction between people and products. Now AI, demographic change, urban transformation and the renewed value of human trust are shifting where decisions happen and what physical stores need to do. The opportunity is to decide what the store becomes next.
For more than a century, grocery retail has moved in one direction: faster, easier, more functional. Self-service began that shift. Larger formats, automation and digital tools accelerated it.
Now the moment of decision is beginning to move away from the store itself.
AI can already compare products and prices before a shopper arrives. Recommendations influence choice. Connected devices can recognise needs before the customer actively does. The important shift is that comparison, choice and consent can increasingly happen elsewhere.
That changes the role of the physical store.
Technology is only one force. Demographics are changing what people need from retailers and how they use them. Sweden offers a clear example. An ageing population and changing household structures are already influencing shopping and eating patterns. The question is larger than the category opportunity: what does this mean for the relationship between retailer and customer?
Cities are changing too. Across Europe, denser neighbourhoods, shorter journeys and more local patterns of everyday life are creating a different context for retail. At the same time, as functional choices become easier to automate, trust, familiarity, provenance and human judgement become more valuable.
The strategic question is simple: “What is the store for?”
Retail has competed on product, then service, then experience. Today, experience itself is increasingly replicable. Purpose becomes the next source of differentiation: a clear decision about why the business should matter beyond the transaction.
After thirty years working across the places where commerce happens, I have seen ambitious transformations lose value for one simple reason: nobody decided.
The sequence should be clear. Decide what the place is for. Build that decision into the environment. Then measure whether it survives in use.
At STIRIXIS Group, this is how we approach value creation. Strategy governs the process from the first question through design and execution, then returns through Evolution to measure whether the intended outcome was created. METALLAXIS strengthens the same process upstream, using signals and foresight to help organisations make better decisions before change becomes obvious.
“Foresight only creates value when it changes a decision.”
The future grocery store will create value by focusing on what technology cannot replace: relevance, trust, human connection and a meaningful role in people’s lives.
For more than a century, the industry had a clear answer to the question of what a grocery store is for.
That question is open again.
And that is the opportunity.
Alex Athanassoulas joined Rachel Sibson, Senior Insight Analyst at IGD, and Martin Moström, CEO, Strategic Advisor & Founder, for the European Grocery Retail Trends panel at the Nordic Grocery Store Expo 2026 in Stockholm.
Alex Athanassoulas is the President & CEO of STIRIXIS Group. In October 2026, he delivered the keynote “Retail in the Perfect Storm” at the Nordic Grocery Store Expo in Stockholm. STIRIXIS Group works across Strategy, Design, Execution and Evolution to create long-term value and True Prosperity.
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