Migros Türkiye Group CEO Özgür Tort on Winning the Last Mile | CGF 2026

Hello everyone, this is Omnitalk Retail.

I'm Chris Walton and I'm coming to you live once again from the Consumer Goods Forum Global Summit in Vienna, Austria from of course the CGF Leadership Studio, which is sponsored by Vuzion.

Now joining me is Oscar Tort and he is the CEO of Migros, the Migros Group.

Oscar, it's great to have you.

Thanks for joining us today.

My pleasure, my pleasure, always.

Yeah.

So You've been on CGF's board for a while now since what?

2013?

2013, Yes.

Wow.

It's been a while.

So what's happening?

What's generally different about CGF now versus back then?

No, I guess there is plenty of shifts in terms of organization.

First of all, we are much more focused.

This is very good because this is what we all target, right?

I mean to have concrete outcomes.

And I can easily see that this is becoming to a real reality.

The topics that we are tackling is just now becoming the real outcomes of what we want to target.

So if I were to go back, I guess we started with a clear agenda of ECG initiatives, I mean ESG initiatives obviously.

So now that there were initiatives, now we have a great outcome on food waste, on plastic waste, especially data management.

With every challenges that we have between manufacturers and retailers.

But when it comes to the agenda, agendas are shifting for retailers, for manufacturers, everyone is the same challenge.

We used to have, of course technology driven issues in the past as well, but now it's magnificent.

I mean the whole agenda of submit is almost transformed into AI driven initiatives which are very clearly, very nice and looking forward to the future.

I guess the most important outcome will be the efficiency that we will gain altogether.

Yeah.

The one interesting thing about this that I've been noticing at the conference, I'm curious to get your take on it too is it feels like the technology focus, and particularly because of AI is actually now melding a more congealed approach to the business across all the different things that are also on, you know, that are being discussed like supply chain resiliency, food, food and climate concerns.

But AI is enabling that discussion to happen more across the board now.

Would you agree with that?

Exactly.

So AI, you know, is a great initiative for business efficiency for everybody.

Agreed.

I mean that started like a pilot thing first, then you know, co piloting and now definitely autopiloting.

I mean this is where we are heading for.

So.

But when you just cross everything across the board of the Consumer Goods Forum agenda is not just business efficiency, but also the initiatives especially that we have taken is helping everything on exchange.

So everything we exchange on can name it, from data on logistics, you go down to every product, content, ingredients, health concerns.

I mean when it comes to climate change, every kind of single steps that we are taking on climate change driven agendas is AI is a great helper.

I mean when we start exchanging from each other, from manufacturers to retailers.

Yeah.

And the other thing that I remember from previous conversations I've had with folks at Migros too, you all are one of the pioneers of E commerce, right?

You guys have been doing e Commerce since 1997 if I'm not mistaken.

Correct.

You were like one of the first ones to do it.

And now what, 20% of your volume comes through e commerce?

One fifth, roughly.

Even more.

Even more.

Even though now we headed 22%.

Wow.

Okay, wow.

Congrats.

So I'm curious, like when you think about that and you think about the trajectory, how do you approach, you know, what's happening with AI right now and not get caught up in over chasing it or chasing it, you know, for digital, for the sake of digital, there's that expression.

But like how do you kind of keep in mind the goals in front of you, you know, knowing that you do, you know, you do have some, some acumen in deciding when to invest and it turns out that you guys were probably there at the right time back in the day.

So how do you make sure you're doing that again?

Yeah, that's a very important question.

First of all, there are things that we have been pioneered, but it's also some kind of prioritization.

But at the same time, I have some straight comments on culture phenomenal as well, because in, in a Turkish market back to the years that we started this initiative, there is always someone who's delivering to your home, right.

So that was the independent retailers very close by to the residential areas, just give them a call, they just bring you the products.

Right.

Larger residential areas, there is a doorman who is doing the servicing at home.

So that was a bit a cultural phenomenon which triggered that initiative back in 1990s.

So we just put the technology on top of it with the Internet.

And at the beginning it was not efficient to be honest, because it's a costly thing.

But now when with all the technologies that we are deploying, especially the speed of and the content that we are sharing with the shoppers and the quality of the image starting and all the attributes of the products that we can share, it's even better than the in store experience because you can learn Better about the product when you just check it on your simple application.

So QR codes and everything, all this dynamic information exchange is helping.

And this is all with technology.

I mean the data integrity, the foundation of data is helping us to deliver all the data information relevant with the shoppers necessities about that simple product.

They can easily compare, they can easily filter.

So next to it, of course the technology which drives with AI or just the technology itself on the automation, because this cost, you have to somehow tackle it.

So that's the picking cost, that's the last mile cost.

So everything we started with the home based delivery and the idea is just stores to be used as a picking destination.

So when we started the whole operation, the challenge was always we wanted to achieve that the household penetration in the country and the stores are the best thing.

So this is why we call in our digital assets and muscles.

Stores are the growth engine of our digital growth.

Okay.

Because as much as store we have penetrated in the country, that's the penetration of digital commerce as well.

So now we have more than 3,800 stores and more than half of them are used as a hub which justified the cost of last mile.

Okay.

So that helped us in terms of technology and now the picking cost.

Picking cost is just, you know, it's a human intensive thing.

But now we manage after all this automation robotics that we implemented, we can pick at the same time four orders in six minutes.

Oh wow.

So that's the picking technology that we have right now back in the store.

Yeah, so that's the backward of this.

We call them mini duck stores.

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

So that two things together combined.

Now I'm really proud to express this is a first of all profit driven initiative now.

Right.

So second far most important, our store penetration is reaching 100% of the households in the country.

Okay.

Whereas digitally and with the last mile efficiencies, we can reach them 84% of the households of the Turkish population.

So that's by far deeply expanded.

Right.

And I mean the efficiencies that we gained helped us to deliver goods less than three hours on 80% of the orders.

Wow.

Okay, so you guys are going that quickly?

Yeah, that's that quick.

And even further, we have this instant deliveries helping us with limited assortment.

But it's very helpful.

In 30 minutes we are almost done.

It's 40, 45 minutes of our orders.

So which means that the speed is there, automation is there and the technology which helps in terms of data exchange is the key.

What is this roadmap?

Wow, wow.

Yeah, I'm seeing that trend too.

Just people trying to get faster, just trying to get it to people faster and using AI and technology to make it happen.

So, you know, E commerce is one side of the equation though too.

And I want to make sure for our audience back home particularly maybe that's not as familiar with the European landscape.

You all operate a lot of different stores too.

And there's a lot under quote unquote, the retail verse too.

So can you talk about the store formats that you operate and also what also comprises the retail verse as you, as you oversee it?

I guess it's an evolution of retail which has happened globally.

It's happened in the Turkish market as well.

We started back in 1950s and that's a very interesting initiative.

The first start of our operations was with trucks.

So trucks were, you know, visiting the simple districts of the city.

Right.

So now we are again with trucks now servicing to do stores from stores to the household.

So back to the origins, I will call it so.

But meanwhile, of course we started with supermarkets, small sized, and then of course with the variety exchange, you know, manufacturers capabilities, a lot of brands.

We extended the store sizes and the store sizes returned into even hypermarkets.

We are still running hypermarkets.

So supermarkets, hypermarkets are kind of an evolution.

But in time, of course, larger, the cities, higher the traffic issues and you know, getting to the locations is getting more difficult.

So then becomes again back to convenience.

So now in the recent years, we are opening more convenience for formats than the larger supermarkets.

Okay, so again back to the necessity of the shoppers.

We used to shop weekly, right.

In the past.

Now it's a occasional shopping as well.

So the best thing, what we call ourselves, I guess multi format understanding with an omnichannel perspective, but always a next generation retailer with technology.

So this is what we want to propose as a kind of engraft engine for us.

So all these formats now is helping us in terms of both penetration of shopping.

Instance.

So if you want to have a top up shopping, it's easy just with a call or just ordering.

If it's a full weekly shopping, you have to have all these physical formats at the same time full of baskets.

So that's kind of an evolution of retail.

But when you do this, I mean sometimes you need a kind of a focused format because some of the shoppers want much better comfort.

So that comfort is maybe less people in the store, but very comfortable experience.

So that is why we have kind of an upscale format which is micro center, which is just delivering a better business terms even when we compare in terms of returns and everything.

So the necessities are evolving.

The formats I call it.

Yeah, I mean we have a lot of pet lovers nowadays.

We have a pet format.

So evolving.

Right?

Health and beauty is evolving.

So we have health and beauty for.

So this is a little bit we want to drive shoppers necessities.

This is really interesting.

This actually harkens back to a conversation we were having yesterday about the penetration of E commerce in the United States.

And the premise of the conversation was that E commerce is actually a much more budget friendly way to shop.

And so the people that I was speaking with, they were saying that I use it for that reason.

And so I try to do as much of my full grocery shopping trip as I can because it saves me money.

With 22% penetration, is that kind of what you're seeing overall?

And then you're having to now adjust the formats too to be more about the fill ins that maybe got forgotten or lost or not ordered in that initial process.

Is that a good way to summarize it or am I oversimplifying it?

No, that's a very valid point because this is the way we review the business model.

Okay.

Because it's an evolution.

You have stores, you have expansion and you want to capture also the, you know, the way you want to expand is kind of an omnichannel view as well.

Where you need to open more stores is also now dependent on the omni channel model.

Because if you want to target that destination, it's not shouldn't be limited with the only catchment of the store, but you also deliver from that store.

So that is why the expansion model even is reviewed.

Okay.

So for that reason now we are having a significant transformation of course about the technology within the store because the store became in large cities, in some specific destinations, we have 50% of the stores turnover coming from online.

Yeah.

So that store has to be transformed in terms of layout, in terms of service.

So that is why it's a continuing transformation.

And there are some stores that we have to do instant deliveries very rapidly, just in 30 minutes.

So that store requirement is also shifted.

So these are the transformation continuing.

Okay.

Wow.

And you guys are just on the front end of it, so to speak.

You know, globally, it sounds like.

All right, so I've never gotten to ask a CEO this question.

Yes.

So I hope you bear with me.

But one of the sessions is on agentic commerce like.

Right.

And so particularly with everything you just said.

So now let's bring agents into the equation and agents are doing the shopping for the consumers where you already have a large penetration rate of E commerce.

How are you preparing for that shift and how do you think it will impact, you know, the Migros business and how it talks to its consumer each and every day?

Yeah, I mean this is what we are discussing in the last couple of days here.

I mean that's a very important discussion.

And efficiency is number one.

So there are a lot of challenges on retailers, on manufacturers due to the current economic conditions in the world.

So that is why we have to be efficient.

And number one driver of AI initiatives is the efficiency.

So the focus of one or two items just to make sure that we focus and focus on efficiency and to have been.

I mean getting ready to this session is a straightforward agenda for not just for us, I mean for every company and retail specific, I can say that it only starts with a great data foundation, right?

I mean your data sets should be high quality, I mean better accessible, flexibly accessible with all these new protocols of MCPS and everything.

Which means that, I mean open source kind of access is easily adapted with these agents.

So we have been transforming our ERP systems, we have been transforming our APP infrastructures to be eligible in that sense.

But I guess one more definite topic is just as retailers, we are all naming ourselves customer oriented, right?

I mean we are shopper oriented, but shop orientation is not just listening to your shopper, but acting.

So this is why, I mean one of the topics that I'm dealing with every day almost is just this customer complaints.

Every day.

Every day.

I imagine so.

Yeah, right.

I put it as a CEO job that we have to listen to shopper complaints and the customer reviews online are the great information set of data.

So if you want to be perfect with AI, you have to first be perfect with the customer.

Customer reviews.

So that is the source of data where AI is, you know, trying to understand which shoppers benefits and which retailers are doing performance.

So these are key points and not.

But last least, not least, I guess whenever it comes to the last mile delivery is, is where we win or just where we lose the game.

Because at the end of it, that's all logistics.

That's the performance that we have to just make sure that the products are delivered in full, on time and in a good shape.

And the goods that you deal with, you're looking in a good shape.

So these are all the reviews that we are reflected and logistics are the key at the end of it to make sure that the AI and The agents are picking you rather than the other alternatives.

So data logistics and customer reviews.

These are data logistics and relentless focus on the customer, particularly on the review side of things.

That's how you think about it.

And especially the the new retail verse that we are coming beyond the trade activities are also great help here.

We are building our own retail media, we are building our own initiative around payment systems, fintech and we are building our own last mile initiatives to make sure that we control the last mile by our own.

So these are great initiatives to combine this experience of the shoppers with the AI.

Just helping all this data combine to make sure that we are the preferred partners.

Wow, this has been great, man.

Thank you so much.

It's been a graduate class.

This has been so fun.

Like I like I said, I never have gotten a chance to ask a CEO about how they're thinking about agentic AI and so thank you for indulging that last question and thank you Oscar for joining us.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

It was an absolute pleasure for me as well.

And thanks to CGF and Vuzion for allowing us to bring you great interviews with folks like Oscar of Migros.

And as always to everyone out there, be careful out there.