JIP

The Czech revelation on the retail market is a chance for other domestic players

JIP. The Czech revelation on the retail market is a chance for other domestic players
The JIP Východočeská Group, owned and managed by brothers Jan and Jiří Plšek, is a revelation on the Czech retail market. At a time when multinational chains like Lidl, Kaufland, Billa, or Penny seemed dominant in traditional brick-and-mortar supermarkets, a long-time wholesaler from East Bohemia decided to shuffle the cards. Today, ICU is gaining a growing share of the market. In early May last year, it opened its largest store in Ostrava — over 6,000 m² — combining a cash & carry store with its own bakery, butcher shop, coffee roastery, and gastro studio. A remarkable and somewhat surprising story of a brand now boasting CZK 13.3 billion in revenue, 1,860 employees, and 13th place among Czech family businesses according to Forbes magazine.

This purely Czech player has bold plans for the near future. After expanding to Ostrava and Brno, it plans to open four large department stores in Prague. From its roots in Eastern Bohemia, ICU is also entering district towns across the country. This is not just significant for the retail market but also great news for other domestic companies — suppliers of quality food or technologies that keep stores running — who now have a chance to join the game thanks to Czech ownership.

One such company is Artemis One — a Czech control software system managing screens and video technology across all ICU stores. Leoš Lemberk, who first approached ICU seven years ago while still working at Samsung, knows the story well. At that time, however, the cooperation didn’t take off.

From Sezemice to the whole country
"Back then, we offered a solution that was too robust and expensive for ICU's needs. It also lacked features ICU required for its daily operations. Years later, we returned with our own Czech-built Artemis One software, and ICU had grown significantly. It was no longer just competing with Makro for B2B sales but also making a serious push into traditional retail. They needed a partner for digital signage, real-time pricing, and in-store navigation," recalls Leoš Lemberk, who has been working in digital signage for over a decade.

Following a pilot project in Sezemice — where system needs, options, and network configurations were fine-tuned — the intuitive Artemis One rolled out to other stores. "The system now manages not just displays but complete video technology. It's used to display logos at store entrances and ads on the floor," adds Lemberk.

The key to the successful collaboration was the system's simplicity and ease of administration. "You don’t have to be a graphic designer or IT expert to upload PowerPoints or videos to one or hundreds of displays. Artemis One includes hardware control, and marketers can easily monitor system status and view screen previews. It’s a comprehensive package for maintaining and managing the entire system," says Lemberk, who also serves as regional sales manager for Central and Eastern Europe at MMD — the company behind Philips and AOC monitors.

Artemis isn't limited to Philips or AOC either. "It’s a fully functional multiplatform system. It works on Philips Android-based displays or via an external player on other devices, including TVs and monitors, so we never push the customer into a specific model," concludes Lemberk.

And we can only look forward to the next chapter of this East Bohemian story — a bold disruption of the Czech food retail status quo.