A supermarket chain, a forecourt group, and a parking operator took the AMPECO Ecosystem Stage at ICNC 2026 in Berlin to share what brought them into the EV charging business. None started out as an EV charging company, yet all three chose to operate their own charging networks rather than leave the business to a third-party operator.
That is not the obvious path. For a business with parking space to offer, the simplest route is often to sign a concession agreement, collect the rent, and let a charge point operator (CPO) take on the investment and operational risk.
Sainsbury’s considered that model and rejected it. INDIGO initially worked with external charging operators, while MFG relied on a supplier for its early rollout. Both eventually decided to bring more of their charging operations in-house.
Despite their different starting points, they arrived at a similar conclusion: they already had much of what they needed to build a successful EV charging business. Handing it over to a third party would mean giving up control of a service that was becoming increasingly important to their core operations.
That didn’t mean doing everything themselves. Each business had to decide what it wanted to own, what it needed to control, and where specialist partners could add the most value.
They already had most of what it takes to run a CPO business
For Richard Hackforth-Jones, Product & Operations Director for Sainsbury’s Smart Charge, the opportunity became clear while he was still working in strategy consulting. He was reviewing a CPO’s pitch deck that showed a row of chargers under a canopy, with a small shop attached. The concept struck him as the wrong way around.
“I just thought, hang on, this is the wrong way around. This shouldn’t be CPO businesses learning to be retailers. Actually, retailers know how to do retail.”
When Sainsbury’s explored running its own charging network, it found that much of the infrastructure needed to support the business was already in place.
The retailer operates around 1,600 stores, with a property division accustomed to planning investments 5, 10, 15, and 20 years ahead. It has a call center handling thousands of calls a day, processes billions of transactions a year, and buys energy at scale. Its existing facilities management and security teams could also support charging operations. Store colleagues, for example, check charging bays twice a day and can report a loose cable through the same work-order system used to arrange repairs for supermarket equipment. At some locations, spare electrical capacity also meant Smart Charge could install high-power chargers without the cost of a new grid connection.
What Sainsbury’s needed to develop was the EV charging-specific expertise. “It’s just the technology side, the customer experience, and learning about the market. That was something we needed to do.”
MFG had a similar head start. The UK’s largest independent forecourt operator already had the locations, operational experience, and supporting functions to build a charging network alongside its existing business. With around 1,200 forecourts, MFG launched EV Power in 2021 and has since grown it to more than 580 charging locations and over 2,500 connectors. Yet, as EV Director Martin Symes explained, “there are five individuals that today run that live network.” Such a lean team is possible because the wider business already provides the finance, IT, HR, property expertise, and land bank needed to support the network.
For INDIGO, the logic was much the same. As a parking operator, it already had the people, processes, and customer support infrastructure needed to manage a service across its locations. Global e-Mobility Director Claude Muller summed it up:
“When you manage parking, you already have processes in place. You already have teams on the ground. You have all the customer support systems in. So you just need to plug in your EV charging services into that ecosystem.”
Across all three businesses, the advantage was not having to build an EV charging operation entirely from scratch. Their existing locations, teams, and operational systems provided much of the foundation. What they needed was the technology and specialist expertise to turn those assets into a charging business.
The customer relationship made ownership worth pursuing
Having the operational capabilities made running an EV charging network possible. Keeping control of the customer relationship made it worth pursuing.
For Sainsbury’s, that distinction was central to the decision. The retailer considered handing its charging operations to an external CPO but ultimately chose to build its own network. Staying close to customers has long been a company priority, and Smart Charge was designed to support the wider retail business from the outset.
As Richard Hackforth-Jones explained:
“Customers who charge with us and then shop with us shop more regularly with us than customers who don’t charge with us.”
The value of charging, then, extends beyond the electricity sold. It gives customers another reason to visit a store and creates opportunities to strengthen their relationship with Sainsbury’s. The retailer has already tested free in-store coffee rewards for charging customers and is exploring Nectar loyalty pricing to encourage more drivers to shop while they charge. By operating Smart Charge itself, Sainsbury’s can shape those experiences and connect charging more closely with its broader retail offering.
For INDIGO, the decision was also about integrating EV charging into an existing customer relationship. The company had already made significant investments in charging infrastructure across its car parks, initially relying on external CPOs and eMSPs to operate the service. As utilization grew, it began questioning that arrangement.
“Why leave this important part of the business to others when we can really deeply integrate it into our full business value chain?” Claude asked.
In Belgium, where INDIGO manages nearly 200 car parks, many on behalf of landlords, that shift brought practical benefits. Philippe Vranckx, Managing Director of INDIGO Park Belgium, pointed to three priorities behind the decision: greater control over operations, the ability to develop its own commercial products, and more flexibility to respond to customer needs.”We wanted to be masters of the business, of the process.”
Owning the operation also meant INDIGO could create and sell its own charging products rather than depend on what external providers offered. And when a municipality requested a change to charging tariffs, the company no longer had to coordinate with multiple partners over several weeks. It could make the change directly.
MFG also came to see the value of having greater control as its charging network expanded. During the first two years of its EV rollout, the group worked with an external supplier before gradually bringing more responsibility in-house.
Looking back, EV Director Martin Symes said he would have taken that approach from the beginning.” If I could start everything again from the start, from the MFG side, I would have done everything myself to begin with.”
These companies were not simply looking to capture more EV charging revenue. They wanted to shape the customer experience, develop their own offerings, and make commercial decisions without relying on another operator’s priorities.
Taking EV charging in-house doesn’t mean doing everything in-house
There is an important distinction between operating your own EV charging network and developing all the technology required to run it. None of these businesses approached ownership as a requirement to internalize everything.
INDIGO is explicit about where it draws the boundary. “The point is not internalizing everything,” Claude said. “The point is really taking where the value sits.” What INDIGO kept was everything the customer touches: the app, the tariffs, the charge card, the support experience. What it bought was the charge point management system (CPMS) underneath.
That approach has also made it easier to expand internationally. INDIGO established its internal CPO model in France in four to five months. With the core systems and processes in place, it was able to roll out the same model in Switzerland in just two months and Belgium in four, with Spain next on its roadmap.
MFG takes a similar approach to technology, with a clear preference for systems that do their job well and integrate easily with the rest of the business. Martin Symes had a straightforward message for software providers:
“There are too many software companies out there that are trying to be everything to everybody.”
Rather than having its CRM, finance, and other business systems built into the charging back office, MFG wants each system to serve its own purpose and exchange information through APIs.
“Having a fantastic suite of APIs, making sure that information is serviceable through those APIs, that should be the root.”
This gives MFG the flexibility to use the tools that best fit its operations without being tied to a single software provider for everything.
The lesson is that running your own EV charging business doesn’t require building your own charging platform. What matters is knowing which capabilities you need to control, which ones are better handled by specialist partners, and having the flexibility to bring them together in a way that works for your business.
They made charging fit the experience their customers already know
The same thinking extends to the driver experience. Rather than asking customers to learn new habits around EV charging, Sainsbury’s, MFG, and INDIGO have built their services around familiar routines, whether that’s shopping for groceries, stopping at a forecourt, or parking a car.
For Sainsbury’s, the goal is to make buying EV charging as straightforward as buying groceries. Smart Charge operates without its own app or eMSP service, keeping the experience focused on simple, reliable payments.
“Just as you buy a carton of milk, we want you to buy EV charging the same way.”
As Richard Hackforth-Jones explained, getting the card payment journey right was his first priority.”It works and it’s boring. Most importantly, it’s a boringly reliable process.”That preference for simplicity also shapes how Sainsbury’s designs its charging sites. The retailer offers a flat charging price and works from a straightforward assumption: “An available bay is more important than a really high-spec bay.”
MFG brings the same practical thinking to its charging network, drawing on decades of experience serving drivers at forecourts. It installed contactless payment terminals on every charger from day one, and around half of all charging sessions are still paid for that way.
Its charging hubs also reflect what drivers already expect from a good forecourt: well-lit spaces, security cameras, clearly marked bays, clean facilities, and access to toilets. MFG introduced Plug & Charge across its network this year, offering a more convenient option for fleets, but Martin Symes doesn’t expect contactless payments to disappear from the UK market.
For INDIGO, the priority is making EV charging feel like a natural part of parking. That means bringing everything from finding a charger and paying through an app or charge card to getting customer support into an experience that drivers can navigate easily.As Claude Muller explained:
“Going big means also making sure that the complexity sits in our hands, not in the hands of the customer.”
For all three businesses, the aim is much the same: to make charging an extension of the service customers already know, rather than a separate experience they have to figure out.
A new kind of competition in EV charging
Sainsbury’s, MFG, and INDIGO show that businesses don’t necessarily need to start in EV charging to become capable charge point operators. They bring established locations, customer relationships, and operational expertise that would take a pure-play CPO considerable time and investment to replicate. And because charging builds on their existing businesses, they can approach it with advantages that go beyond the charging infrastructure itself.
Their experiences also suggest that becoming a CPO is not necessarily about building an entirely new business from the ground up. It’s about recognizing where existing strengths can create value, developing the capabilities needed to operate charging, and working with specialist partners where they make the most sense.
As more established businesses consider running their own networks, the question is no longer simply who owns the chargers, but who is best positioned to build a successful business around them.
