Not everything is white label and pre-cooked food in Mercadona’s strategy. Although the Valencian company is transforming part of its stores in ‘merchants’spaces where customers can eat dishes already cooked in the supermarket, their commercial commitment also involves the opposite pole: attracting those families who choose to stay at home and make their purchases remotely. Only in 2025 the online channel reported 1.1 billion to the company, which explains why it has just released a new mega warehouse in Madrid with which he wants to revolutionize his distance sales.
In fact, he calls it a “Semi-Automated Hive.”
What has happened? What Mercadona just opened a warehouse in the La Atalayuela industrial estate, in Villa de Vallecas (Madrid), which aspires to mark a before and after in its online sales channel. The reason: although the Valencian chain already has six other similar warehouses, spread across Valencia, Barcelona, Alicante, Seville and the Community of Madrid itself, where it manages another two in Getafe and Boadilla del Monte, none of them is comparable to the one in Vallecas.
Why is it different? The other six “hives” (the name with which Mercadona refers to this type of warehouse) work with operators and machinery, but the one it has activated in La Atalayuela is the first semi-automated one in its network.
That is, the new warehouse incorporates 70 robots that will be responsible for directly managing 2,700 non-perishable goods, which will in turn simplify the tasks that depend on the operators. “The worker no longer walks through aisles to locate the products, but rather the product arrives at the order preparation station,” clarify.
Do we know anything else? Yes. The new warehouse does not only stand out for its operation, it also stands out for its size. Round the 32,000 square meterswhich makes it the largest “Hive” in the network managed by Mercadona.
To build it, the company has invested 54 million euros and formed a staff of 700 people. Its objective is to be able to attend up to 5,000 orders per day, which would raise Mercadona’s total capacity in the Community of Madrid to 8,000 if the warehouses that already operate in Getafe and Boadilla del Monte are taken into account. The firm aims to cover 95% of the locations in the region this year.
Why is it important? Because, beyond what it may mean for the service it provides in Madrid, the new warehouse also tells us about Mercadona’s strategy.
The chain has been betting on its white label and the section ‘Ready to eat’which basically offers customers an assortment of already cooked dishes. The bet is going reasonably well: the latest data that has emerged shows that in 2025 the company will invoice in Spain 700 million of euros through this last route, a figure that rises to 3,000 million if the entire business of pre-cooked foods in the national and Portuguese markets is included.
Although the online channel includes a section of “prepared dishes”the ‘Ready to eat’ section basically relies on face-to-face sales in stores. In fact, in some stores Mercadona even offers spaces with tables and chairs where customers can eat, just as if they were in a bar. The new Colmena aims at a different business niche: that of distance sales.
And how are you doing in that business? In your latest annual report Mercadona revealed that in 2025 the “reinforcement” of its online purchasing model allowed it to increase turnover through that channel by 26%, surpassing the barrier of 1,000 million euros for the first time. To be more precise, the Valencian company was talking about a cash flow of 1,061 million euros thanks to both the activity of its “Hives” and the 218 physical stores that offer the service.
In addition to opening warehouses, Mercadona has made two major improvements in this channel in recent years: it has enabled its website to make it accessible to customers with vision problems and it has incorporated Bizum as a payment method.
Images | Mercadona
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