Hypermarket service station road maps - Belgium
Cora, GB

Cora is a major French-based hypermarket chain that has 7 hypermarkets in Belgium, 6 of which sell own-brand petrol. Its origins go back to the late 19th century, when the Belgian Louis Delhaize, a brother of the Delhaize who established the leading Belgian retailer, set up retailing interests in Northern France. In 1968 this company established its first French hypermarkets, under franchise from Carrefour, but in 1974 introduced its own Cora brand. Today Cora, which remains part of the Louis Delhaize group, operates Cora hypermarkets, Smatch and Match supermarkets and other retail chains principally in France, Belgium and Hungary.

Cora's 1999 Belgian road map (none are known from its larger French operation) uses standard Michelin cartography at 1:300,000. The rear cover lists Cora's Belgian hypermarkets, but there is no customisation of the map inside.

GB has been a leading Belgian food retailer since the late 19th century. In the mid 1970s it expanded by acquiring the Priba 2000 hypermarkets and merging with Innovation-Bon Marché, a more general retailer. In 1998 the French company Promodes acquired around 25% of GB-Inno-BM and following Carrefour's purchase of Promodes, Carrefour bought the rest of GB. Its Belgian hypermarkets now carry the Carrefour name, but like the GB supermarkets, any attached filling stations still sell Shell petrol.

This map almost certainly dates from the early 1990s, long after GB had stopped selling its own brand of fuel. The products advertised on the cover are believed to be all food; there is certainly no connection between the OZO advertised here and the brand that Total acquired in 1960. Cartography was by de Rouck at 1:400,000.