Unlocking new retail locations with flexible drainage solutions

Retail is shifting – and location matters more than ever

Across Europe, grocery formats are moving closer to where people live, commute and shop day-to-day. Urban convenience stores and supermarkets are growing fast, and chains are investing heavily in highly accessible, high-footfall locations. Recent European market data shows a 3% increase in convenience retail floorspace in 2023, with strong growth particularly in dense city areas.

For the major chains, location strategy has become almost a real-estate discipline: mapping micro-catchments, competitor proximity and pedestrian flows with precision. Yet even when the ideal spot is identified, one practical issue often decides the outcome:

Can this building support refrigerated cabinets and other drainage-dependent equipment?

- In existing buildings, the answer is often no, because there are no floor drains, no gravity fall, or because regulations prevent cutting into the slab. As a result, many centrally located, high-value premises never become grocery stores, despite strong commercial potential, says Fredric Frøystad, Sales Manager Retail at JETS.

And in new buildings, drainage requirements can delay or complicate construction. Developers often need a fully confirmed tenant layout before starting groundworks, since traditional drainage must be fixed in the slab. This increases cost, risk and decision time.

Jets® vacuum drainage removes that dependency. It allows construction to begin before every detail is locked in, reduces the amount of structural groundwork needed, and gives both developers and retailers the freedom to adjust layouts later, lowering the threshold for moving forward with a project, and accelerating the path to opening a new store.

When traditional drainage blocks good locations

Conventional drainage depends entirely on gravity. Condensate from refrigerated cabinets must flow downwards to a drain, which usually requires cutting channels into the floor slab to install pipework with the correct gradient. In existing buildings, this means noise, dust, structural intervention, negotiation with neighbours and, often, multiple rounds with landlords or heritage authorities.

In upper floors, basements without fall, older buildings or protected structures, such interventions are either prohibitively expensive or simply not permitted. The consequence is that many attractive, centrally located units become unusable for grocery or fresh-food concepts because of drainage alone.

This is exactly the limitation JETS aims to remove.

Opening up a wider pool of viable retail locations

Jets® vacuum drainage breaks this dependency on gravity. Instead, the system transports condensate water vertically up to the ceiling and out of the store using vacuum. In essence, the building itself becomes the deciding factor, not the direction of the pipes.

For developers, landlords and grocery chains, this dramatically expands the number of viable retail locations. Typical examples include:

• Shopping centre units with no existing floor drains – where a food retailer would normally require extensive reconstruction.

• Second, third or fourth-floor premises in dense urban buildings – where cutting into the slab is technically complex, disruptive for other tenants or not allowed.

• Basements and former parking areas – which often lack gravity fall but offer excellent footprint and accessibility for certain formats.

• Older or heritage-protected buildings – where structural changes are heavily restricted but street visibility and footfall are highly attractive.

• Multi-use or “shell” buildings – where construction can begin before all tenants are confirmed, and owners want flexibility to adapt spaces over time.

- With vacuum drainage, we can finally activate buildings that were previously off the table for supermarkets. It gives far more freedom to match the right concept with the right location, says Frøystad.

The commercial impact is straightforward: more viable locations, faster store openings and increased freedom to choose the site that truly fits the chain’s strategy – not the limitations of gravity.

Future-proofing both buildings and business

Perhaps the most strategic advantage of vacuum drainage becomes visible over time. Grocery formats evolve, planograms change, categories are added or removed, and some units shift concept completely.

When drainage is not fixed in the floor, the store is free to evolve with these changes. Refrigerated cabinets can be moved. Aisles can be re-opened. A convenience store can transform into a different format without re-cutting the slab. In many cases, the same vacuum system can even be reused if the store relocates within the building or to a new unit.

And because the system is routed above the floor and requires no structural work, stores can remodel without shutting down large areas, creating building dust or causing heavy noise. The result is a more flexible, low-disruption way to keep the store layout aligned with customer needs, both today and in the years ahead.

For landlords and developers, this means:

• Fewer structural interventions throughout the building’s lifetime

• Less disruption during upgrades, as work can be done without cutting into slabs

• Shorter downtime and reduced construction waste during refurbishments

• A more adaptable, future-proof asset that keeps pace with market needs

For grocery chains, it means:

• A more agile store network

• Easier to upgrade existing layouts

• Remodelling without shutting down large areas of the store or generating building dust or noise

• Easier to reposition categories and equipment

• Easier to expand into high-demand urban areas where space is limited and flexibility is essential

Ultimately, vacuum drainage removes a technical barrier that has held back many promising locations for years. By freeing retailers from the constraints of gravity, JETS gives both chains and building owners a practical and economically sound advantage:

- the freedom to choose the best location, not just the locations traditional drainage allows.