The Basque distribution cooperative Eroski increased its sales in 2022 to touch 5,500 million euros but its net profits fell by 40.7 million compared to those obtained in 2021. Eroski does not follow, according to these results, the path of growth in sales but also in profits of Mercadona, Carrefour and Lidl – the first three distribution chains in Spain – and attributes this cut in its profits both to the control of prices and the increase in promotions and to the "normalization" of its financial expenses. On 13 March, the Basque logistics chain activated a savings superbasket with more than 1,000 products at discounted prices.

Eroski is positioned as the fourth distribution chain in Spain with sales that reached 5,476 million, 7% more than in 2021. This increase, however, has not translated into an increase in gross profit due to both the effects of inflation and the financial costs of a group that still carries a debt of 909 million euros after amortizing 2,514 million since 2009.

"We have obtained a lower profit than the previous year as a result of the increase in costs, the normalization of financial results and, notably, the decision to reduce our margins to contain prices and increase our promotional activity," said Eroski CEO Rosa Carabel in the presentation of last year's results.

Eroski maintains that in 2022 it "transferred savings" equivalent to 355 million euros to its consumers by applying an "intense promotional activity and price monitoring and adjustment". According to their data, the increase in costs due to inflation in 2022 was 15% while the impact on prices was reduced to 12%. Distributors such as Mercadona estimated that their costs in the acquisition of products increased last year by 12% while consumer prices did so by 10%.

Carabel has acknowledged that inflation has caused the consumer to have a much greater "sensitivity to price" in shopping baskets that show a reduction of 9% in terms of products and in which almost a third of what is purchased (28%) with own brands or 'white' brands. Eroski has seen a 7% increase in these own products, practically with an increase equivalent to all its sales.

The Basque distribution chain maintains its expansion policy with franchisees outside the Basque Country and Navarra and already has 600 of these establishments after opening 67 during the last year. Rosa Carabel assumed the executive leadership of Eroski in July 2022 when she relieved Agustín Markaide, for eleven years president of this cooperative. Markaide left Eroski for retirement and after managing to refinance a heavy debt that endangered the continuity of the consumer cooperative at the beginning of this century.

  • Mercadona
  • Navarre
  • Lidl
  • Back to school

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