Belgian entrepreneur, the eldest son of Franz Colruyt and Adeline Colruyt-Moens. His father founded the Colruyt discount supermarket retail store chain in 1928. He joined the family business in 1947, sat on the board of the new SA in 1950 and, following his father’s illness, he took on ever greater responsibilities.
He introduced new products, notably offering their retail customers the “cash and carry” formula: they themselves would choose their goods in the company’s warehouses, thus dispensing with representatives and offering more advantageous prices. The company abandoned wholesaler activities in 1977.
In the mid-1960s, the company offered the general public a new sales technique that distinguished it from the competition: “discount”. This idea, an extension of “cash and carry”, was linked to the purchase of a commercial establishment in Ixelles, where the regulations in force did not allow for transformation into a large supermarket. Jo Colruyt then decides to turn it into a large warehouse where the goods were presented in a sober manner to consumers, invited them to take a punched card, read at the checkout, along with each item. This system, connected to a small computer, reduced costs and offered very low prices. Requiring total productivity from its staff with a view to maximum cost reduction, Colruyt’s corporate culture and work organization led to friction with the trade unions. But expansion was rapid: in 1965, the turnover was 250 million; ten years later, it exceeded ten billion.
On 23 May 1953 he married Rita De Man who served as managing director in the company. He died of a heart attack on 6 October 1994 at age 66 in Puget-Thèziers, France.
Link to Wikipedia biography