Mercadona

Mercadona is a Spanish supermarket chain, with 1,636 stores across Spain and Portugal.

The company was founded by Francisco Roig Ballester and his wife, Trinidad Alfonso Mocholi in 1977. Mercadona began as a small butchers shop in Tavernes Blanques, a village in Valencia. 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 across the whole company and revealed the new façade of Mercadona as a result of the competitive business landscape, which includes competitors such as Carrefour and the co-operative Eroski.

History
Since its initial start as a butchers shop in 1977, Mercadona expanded to eight stores in 1981, and 1,148 stores by October 2013. The chain has had an online shop since 2001, which accounted for one percent of total sales in 2010. Today it accounts for 13.5% of Spain's total food retail space and was able to achieve over €508 million in profit for the 2012 fiscal year.

CEO Juan Roig plans to bring Mercadona to Italy or France but with potential modifications in 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, 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 owns 9%.

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.

Mercadona does not spend capital resources on advertising or marketing campaigns, which is another means of cutting costs. 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 of checkout times. Mercadona also has an automated distribution center on the outskirts of Madrid, where computer monitors keep track of orders while manual labour is performed by robotic arms.