Coto C.I.C.S.A., (mostly known for its

tradename A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...

Coto) is an Argentine

supermarket chain A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...

founded by Alfredo Coto in 1970 as a

butcher shop A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat, or participate within any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale food establishm ...

. The first ''Coto'' supermarket was opened in the city of Mar de Ajó in La Costa Partido in 1987.La parábola del Señor de las Góndolas
on La Política Online, 29 Sep 2007 The chain currently has 120 supermarkets, most of them in Buenos Aires Province.

Overview

Childhood memories of the downtown Buenos Aires

opened by Joaquín Coto, an immigrant from

Galicia (Spain) Galicia (; gl, Galicia or ; es, Galicia}; pt, Galiza) is an autonomous community of Spain and historic nationality under Spanish law. Located in the northwest Iberian Peninsula, it includes the provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense, a ...

, inspired his son, Alfredo, to open his own, in the

Boedo Boedo is a working-class ''barrio'' or neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The neighborhood and one of its principal streets were named after Mariano Boedo, a leading figure in the Argentine independence. It is the home of San Lorenzo de A ...

neighborhood, in 1970. Building on the customer base he and his wife, Gloria, had cultivated through wholesale delivery, Coto owned a slaughterhouse and 34 retail outlets by the time he opened his first supermarket in Mar de Ajó, a seaside tourist destination, in 1987.''La Nación'': Alfredo Coto, un imperio tras las góndolas
Coto Supermarkets expanded rapidly during the 1990s, and by 1996, netted over a billion

US dollars The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

in sales. The company opened five

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...

s from the late 1990s onwards (each anchored by a Coto

hypermarket A hypermarket (sometimes called a hyperstore, supercentre or superstore) is a big-box store combining a supermarket and a department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including ...

), beginning with those in

Lanús Lanús () is the capital of Lanús Partido, Buenos Aires Province in Argentina. It lies just south of the capital city Buenos Aires, in the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area. The city has a population of 212,152 (), and the Partido de Lan� ...

and

Temperley Temperley is a district in Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina, located in the south of Lomas de Zamora Partido. History In 1854 the industrial and textile merchant George Temperley (born in 1823 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England) bought from the ...

, as well as a wholesale distribution and production center in

Monte Grande Monte Grande is a city which forms part of the urban agglomeration of Greater Buenos Aires. It is the administrative seat of Esteban Echeverría Partido in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It was founded on April 3, 1889, by a company named ''Soc ...

. The acquisition of the Norte chain by French retailer

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, whic ...

in 2000 left Coto as the largest, domestic supermarket retailer in Argentina, and Coto remained third overall (behind Carrefour and

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

an retailer

Cencosud Cencosud S.A. is a publicly traded multinational retail company. It's the largest retail company in Chile and the third largest listed retail company in Latin America, competing with the Brazilian Companhia Brasileira de Distribuição and the M ...

). Coto's most significant competition (and that of Argentine supermarkets in general) is that of the growing number of Asian Argentine grocers, which by 2010 numbered around 8,000, and whose combined earnings approached those of the Coto chain. The Coto group enjoys a 17% market share nationwide (reaching 28% in the metro Buenos Aires area), and operates 95 supermarkets, 16 hypermarkets, 5 shopping malls, 3 slaughterhouses, the distribution center, a digital specialized division and a

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

unit of 183 trucks.Coto: La Empresa. Presente.
The company launched the Tarjeta Shopping credit card in 1996, and the TCI store card, in 2005; the two cards were used by over 540,000 clients in late 2007.''Valor Local'' (April 28, 2008)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Coto Supermarkets Retail companies established in 1970 Retail companies of Argentina Supermarkets of Argentina 1970 establishments in Argentina Companies based in Buenos Aires Argentine brands