• 2018.Mercadona earns 84% ​​more in 2018 and Roig warns: "This year we are playing stronger than ever"

Mercadona sold 5% more last year, up to 25,500 million euros, the chain said today. In 2018 this growth had been 6%. The president of Mercadona, Juan Roig, has detailed today the main figures of the chain in 2019, coinciding with days in which alarm scenes are being lived in some of its supermarkets in Madrid for the coronavirus.

Of the total of this turnover, 32 million correspond to Portugal, where the chain arrived in summer.

The executive has highlighted "the brutal transformation" of the company this past year , both in assortment, as in stores, as in "social responsibility." "We have made a historic milestone this year, which is going out to Portugal," he said.

Roig has reviewed all these milestones. He highlighted the success of the "ready to eat" section, with prepared food. There are already 319 stores with this section. Implementing this service costs half a million euros and in total 170 million have been invested.

"The kitchen of the twentieth century will change and in 2050 there will be no kitchen as we know it. A need arose, which is to find suppliers. There is a great opportunity for suppliers of these products. It is a very exciting project," he said.

400 stores have already been transformed and there are 800 of the store 8 model, which is the efficient store. Another 200 will be reformed this year, so 2020 will end with 1,000 of that sustainable model. In total, the chain has 1635 stores.

On-line

As for Mercadona online, the chain is opening hives, which are logistics warehouses from where the distribution of orders is made (so that it is not made from the store). Mercadona already billed six million euros between the two hives in Valencia and Barcelona . In the second quarter it will open in Madrid capital.

"The online is unstoppable but what it represents today in Mercadona sales is still marginal," said Roig, who came to say a few years ago that the Mercadona website was "crap."

This summer the Valencia chain landed in Portugal, where it opened 10 stores in Porto. The first one opened in July and "Portuguese society has received us very well, like a Portuguese company, of Spanish origin and with headquarters in Valencia. We are very satisfied and have learned a lot about Portugal." 900 people and 300 suppliers already work in the country.

Mercadona's sales in 2018 had already grown by 6%, to € 24,305 million. The group shot the profit by 84%, up to 593 million euros, compared to 322 million that it had won in 2017. It won almost double although it has invested 1,504 million in the various projects it has underway, such as the Opening of 10 stores in Portugal, the reform of its network of stores and digital transformation, among others.

With a workforce of 90,000 workers, Mercadona is the first employer in this country , ahead of El Corte Inglés. This year, for example, 4,100 jobs have been created. "The height of a tunnel is not the average nor the highest point but the lowest point, so we are trying to eliminate the worst product, the worst installation," Roig said.

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