Mercadona, S.A.
TypeSociedad Anónima. Private.
IndustryRetail
Founded1977
FounderFrancisco Roig Ballester
Headquarters
Tavernes Blanques, Valencian Community
,
Spain
Number of locations
1,636 stores (11.9.2019)[1]
Area served
Spain, Portugal
Key people
Juan Roig (Chairman & ceo)
ProductsGrocery
Revenue€ 25.5 billion (US$ 28 billion) (2019)
Total assets8,194,637,000 ±1000 euro (2016) Edit this on Wikidata
Owner
Number of employees
85,800[1]
Websitewww.mercadona.com

Mercadona (Valencian: [meɾkaˈðɔna], Spanish: [meɾkaˈðona]) is a Spanish supermarket chain. Mercadona has 1,636 stores in all the 17 Spanish regions, Ceuta, Melilla and in Portugal.

Mercadona was ranked the 9th most reputable company in the world in 2009 by the Reputation Institute as listed in Forbes magazine.[2]

Francisco Roig Ballester and his wife, Trinidad Alfonso Mocholi, founded the company in 1977.[3] Mercadona began as a small butcher shop in Tavernes Blanques, a village in Valencia.[4][5] 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 as a consequence of the competitive landscape of businesses such as Carrefour or the co-operative Eroski.

History

Since its days as a butcher shop in 1977,[6] 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.[7] Today it holds 13.5% of Spain's total food retail space[8] and brought in more than €508 million in profits for the 2012 fiscal year.[9]

CEO Juan Roig plans to bring Mercadona to Italy or France but may modify his Spanish model of business to compete in the new markets.[10] He was quoted in the Economist saying, "We must learn everything from everyone".[11] The Mercadona Management Committee approved in 2016, the start of the expansion in Portugal, the first supermarket in Vila Nova de Gaia opened their doors in July 2019.[12]

Ownership

Juan Roig is the CEO and major shareholder (50%), his wife Hortensia Herrero owns 30%, and his brother Fernando Roig owns 9%.[3]

There is third partner, Rafael Gómez Gómez, which holds 7% of Mercadona.

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.[11]

Mercadona does not spend capital resources on advertising or marketing campaigns, yet another method of cutting costs.[11] It instead relies on their Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts to share pictures and videos of products and company practices.

Modern changes

Mercadona was the first Spanish company to use barcodes in its stores. The system has since permitted greater monitoring of product movement in addition to an optimizing checkout times.[9] Mercadona also has an automated distribution center on the outskirts of Madrid, where computer monitors keep track of orders while robot arms do all the work.[11]

Revenue

Revenue in Millions of Euros[13]
Source: Mercadona

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.[5] 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.[5]

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.[14] 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.

Customer service

The website caters to speakers of Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Basque.

References

  1. 1 2 at official website
  2. ↑ Kneale, Klaus World's Most Reputable Companies: The Rankings (2009) at Forbes magazine, 5 June 2009
  3. 1 2 "Fernando Roig". Forbes. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  4. ↑ "Mercadona reveals suppliers to fight claims of ditching Spanish produce". El País. 27 January 2016. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
  5. 1 2 3 Ball, Deborah and Ilan Brat (23 October 2012). "Spanish Supermarket Chain Finds Recipe". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
  6. ↑ "Oriol Amat, Universidad Pompeu Fabra. «Mercadona: Adaptando el modelo de negocio en años de recesión»" (PDF).
  7. ↑ Ruiz, Alfonso Simón (2010-11-23). "Mercadona lidera la venta online gracias a sus marcas blancas". Cinco Días (in Spanish). Retrieved 2022-04-30.
  8. ↑ "Mercadona". Mercadona. Archived from the original on 28 October 2013. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
  9. 1 2 "Meet Spain's Mercadona Supermarket Billionaires". Bloomberg TV. 14 May 2013. Archived from the original on 17 October 2013. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
  10. ↑ Romero, Víctor (March 13, 2019). "Francia o Italia, el dilema de Juan Roig en la segunda internacionalización de Mercadona". El Confidencial (in Spanish). Valencia: Titania Compañía Editorial, S.L. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
  11. 1 2 3 4 "Spanish aisles, Why a low-price retailer is thriving". The Economist. Madrid: The Economist Newspaper Limited. 4 June 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
  12. ↑ "Mercadona prepares its international expansion in Portugal". Sweet Press. 24 June 2016. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
  13. ↑ Mercadona (Spain) (ed.). "Revenue. Oficial Data". Retrieved 3 March 2015.
  14. ↑ "Mercadona now offers 850 gluten-free products". ThinkSpain. Retrieved 30 April 2017.
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