Mercadona (, ) is a
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
supermarket chain. Mercadona has 1,636 stores in all the 17
Spanish regions
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ca, comunitat autònoma
gl, comunidade autónoma
oc, comunautat autonòma
an, comunidat autonoma
ast, comunidá autónoma
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,
Ceuta
Ceuta (, , ; ar, سَبْتَة, Sabtah) is a Spanish autonomous city on the north coast of Africa.
Bordered by Morocco, it lies along the boundary between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of several Spanish territorie ...
,
Melilla
Melilla ( , ; ; rif, Mřič ; ar, مليلية ) is an autonomous city of Spain located in north Africa. It lies on the eastern side of the Cape Three Forks, bordering Morocco and facing the Mediterranean Sea. It has an area of . It was par ...
and in
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
. Mercadona was ranked the 9th most reputable company in the world in 2009, by the Reputation Institute as listed in ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'' magazine.
Francisco Roig Ballester and his wife, Trinidad Alfonso Mocholi, founded the company in 1977,
which began as a small butcher shop in Tavernes Blanques, a village in
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, Valencia and the Municipalities of Spain, third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is ...
.
Juan Roig assumed the role of CEO in 1981, and the company has since expanded nationwide. In the 1990s, Juan Roig oversaw a series of changes companywide and revealed the new façade of Mercadona which was able to compete with its
French competitor
Carrefour
Carrefour () is a French multinational retail and wholesaling corporation headquartered in Massy, France. The eighth-largest retailer in the world by revenue, it operates a chain of hypermarkets, groceries stores and convenience stores, which ...
and the co-operative
Eroski
Eroski is a Spanish supermarket chain with nearly 1,000 outlets spread across Spain (excluding franchises).
It is run as a worker-consumer hybrid co-operative within the Mondragón Corporation group.
The establishments vary in size from the la ...
.
History
Since its days as a butcher shop in 1977, Mercadona expanded to eight stores in 1981, and 1,148 stores as of October 2013, with more on the way. The chain has had an online shop since 2001, which accounted for one percent of total sales in 2010. Today it holds 13.5% of Spain's total food retail space and brought in more than €508 million in profits for the 2012 fiscal year.
CEO Juan Roig plans to bring Mercadona to
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
or France but may modify his Spanish model of business to compete in the new markets. He was quoted in the Economist saying, "We must learn everything from everyone".
The Mercadona Management Committee approved in 2016, the start of the expansion in
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
, the first supermarket in Vila Nova de Gaia opened their doors in July 2019.
Ownership
Juan Roig is the CEO and major shareholder (50%), his wife
Hortensia Herrero owns 30%, and his brother
Fernando Roig
Fernando Roig Alfonso (born 25 June 1947) is a Spanish billionaire businessman, the owner and president of the Spanish football club Villarreal CF, and owner of 9% of the Spanish supermarket chain Mercadona. As of October 2021, ''Forbes'' estima ...
owns 9%. They are all billionaires.
There is another partner, Rafael Gómez Gómez, which holds 7% of the company.
Business model
Mercadona dedicates much of its resources to eliminating unnecessary costs in its packaging. According to the Economist, the chain has saved €2.2 billion by reducing packaging materials.
This included opting out of a glossy finish on packaging which company leaders deemed unnecessary,
and adding a plastic lid to a can of tuna, making it easier to open and more appealing to purchase.
Mercadona does not spend capital resources on advertising or marketing campaigns, yet another method of cutting costs.
It instead relies on word of mouth and free social media to promote and maintain its brand. Their
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
,
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
, and
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
accounts share pictures and videos of products and company practices.
Modern changes
Mercadona was the first Spanish company to use
barcode
A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...
s in its stores. The system has since permitted greater monitoring of product movement in addition to an increase in the speed of customer checkout times.
Mercadona also has an automated distribution center on the outskirts of
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
, where computer monitors keep track of orders while robot arms do all the work.
Revenue
Employees
Mercadona employs more than 90,000 workers, all on permanent contracts. Upon hire, workers are required to complete four weeks of training. Employees must also go through twenty additional hours of training each year. Employees receive salaries above the national average of workers in the grocery store industry and the majority of employees receive a bonus each year.
Leaders of Mercadona believe this combination of training and payment creates employees who are dedicated and flexible when it comes to meeting customer needs. It is also believed to have helped the company to maintain a relatively low level of employee turnover, only 5% in 2012.
Gluten-free products
Gluten-free products were hard to come by in Spain, which prompted Mercadona to create a whole line of gluten-free products at very affordable prices.
Mercadona offers over 850 products for the wheat-intolerant. Mercadona has received over 750 comments, suggestions and requests from wheat-intolerant customers and coeliac associations in 2013, and has acted on these by passing them onto distribution companies and food manufacturers, as well as the store's own factories. Mercadona aims to create products that taste as close as possible to their mainstream counterparts while keeping the costs as low as possible. Products for the wheat-intolerant at Mercadona include yogurt, instant potato for making 'tortilla', or Spanish omelet, beans, sauces, hot chocolate powder, snack mixes, sliced bread, and even iced lollies and drinkable sorbets. It is said that the gluten-free movement started in Mercadona when a member of the founding family was diagnosed with coeliac disease.
Customer service
The website caters to speakers of
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
,
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
,
Galician,
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Retail companies established in 1977
Companies based in the Valencian Community
Supermarkets of Spain
Spanish brands
1977 establishments in Spain
Supermarkets
Food retailers
Companies based in Valencia
1977 establishments