COSTA RICA’S MEGASUPER CORPORATION JOINS THE IGA SYSTEM

IGA licenses 60 Stores Throughout Costa Rica

CHICAGO, IL - IGA today announced independent family-owned Megasuper Corporation, San José, Costa Rica’s second biggest supermarket chain with 200 million in sales annually, has joined the IGA system. Under the terms of the contract, the company’s existing 60 supermarkets will fly the IGA Banner, as will future Megasuper supermarkets. Currently MegaSuper Corporation has two types of supermarket formats, Supermercados Megasuper and Mi Mercado Megasuper.

Megasuper was founded in 1999, and opened the doors of its first supermarket in the industrial area of Cartago. By year-end, the company had opened another store in Valencia de Heredia. In 2000, four additional supermarkets opened and the Paraiso Mall, the biggest shopping center in the Cartago province. The following year, Megasuper acquired Supermercados La Feria, S.A., gaining three discount format supermarkets. In August the chain Mi Mercado was inaugurated, opening four supermarkets. The year closed with ten Megasupers and ten Mi Mercados. In 2002, Megasuper acquired the supermarket chain Consucoop, adding fifty points of sale and a distribution center.

“The Megasuper stores reflect the entrepreneurial spirit of the family business,” Dr. Paulo Goelzer, executive vice president, IGA International. “We are pleased to have this group of sixty Costa Rica stores joining IGA. I am sure that through the partnership we have established, we will help strengthen the entrepreneurial spirit of the Costa Rican retailer with world-class marketing practices.”

IGA, the only global supermarketer based in the United States, is the world’s largest voluntary supermarket network with aggregate worldwide retail sales of more than $21 billion per year. The Alliance includes more than 4,000 Hometown Proud Supermarkets worldwide, supported by 36 distribution companies and more the 55 major manufacturers, vendors and suppliers encompassing everything from grocery to equipment items. IGA ranks in the top 10 in world food supermarketing. IGA has operations in 48 of the United States and more than 40 countries, commonwealths and territories on all six inhabited continents.