If you go to the RAE website and look for the definition of “supermarket” You will see that its academics describe it basically as a store where one goes to fill their basket with food, drinks, cleaning products and other belongings. Then he goes to the checkout, pays what is due and goes home. The same thing that the experience accumulated after years and years of making the purchase tells us. The problem is that both the RAE and our experience are beginning to stay out of date.
The supers they are no longer happy with being our food providers. Now they want to be something more: our main reference in food. And that means stopping competing only with each other to do so with hoteliers and even multinational restaurant chains. like McDonald’s or Burger King.
Express it clearly Bernardo RodillaRetail Business Director at Wordlpanel by Numerator: “Mercadona no longer competes only with Carrefour, it is also competing with the restaurant on the corner and McDonald’s. In the end everyone fights for the same need and it’s getting closer.”
A share of almost 20%
Rodilla’s reflection is interesting for several reasons. First, for his knowledge of the sector. Second, because Worldpanel is one of the firms that produces the most statistics on food and retail market shares.
Not long ago, in fact, he published a report that slipped a key idea: Mercadona is no longer just the chain with higher market share in its sector, far surpassing rivals such as Carrefour or Lidl, it has also become a heavyweight in global food. Translated into figures, this means hoarding a share of the value of almost 20% in food and beverage consumption.
What does that mean? That Mercadona sells as much (or more) food as traditional hospitalityat least in terms of value. According to the Worldpanel reportbars, cafes and terraces accounted for around 11.2% share and independent restaurants 8.6%. However, Mercadona takes 19.7%, quite a distance from others retailssuch as Carrefour (6%) and Lidl (5.1%).
The change in the sector ‘photo’ is so clear that Rodilla recognizes that it is forcing analysts to rethink their way of studying the sector.
“We propose that we increasingly have to look at market shares in a global total of food. We can no longer differentiate if it is food for eat at home or eat out or for restaurants,” he points out. Everything also indicates that the panorama will continue to change over time, as the prepared food sections of supermarkets continue to expand.
Probably the clearest example is left ‘Ready to eat’the cooked food service launched in 2018 by the Juan Roig chain and which basically (as its name indicates) allows the customer to buy already prepared dishes at the supermarket that, in many cases, they can devour right there, without having to leave the store. Although it is less than a decade old, this line of business already has hundreds of millions and look from you to you to chains of fast food.
“Everything that is ‘Ready to eat’ is a trend that, not only in Spainbut in many countries, it is having a journey. It gains weight and it makes sense because in the end we want to spend as little time as possible cooking,” reasons Rodilla.
As for the future, and despite the fact that, as the Worldpanel expert recalls, when a trend takes hold it is common for others to emerge in the opposite direction, it is expected that services such as Mercadona’s will continue to expand.
The phenomenon is not limited to the Valencian chain. There are many other companies, such as Carrefour, Alcampo or Masymaswho are exploring the business niche of prepared meals. In fact, they are beginning to be so popular that a new term has even been coined to designate those supermarkets with food counters and rooms where you can taste them: the ‘merchants’.
In Barcelona the ‘traditional’ hoteliers have already started to denounce them so they consider a unfair competition that affects them directly.
Its strategy is to offer cheap, appetizing, flexible and fast-consuming menus. They sell food, yes; but above all they sell time savings. The bet is working so well that there are those who believe, including Roig himselfthat supermarkets will end up making kitchens outdated spaces in the home. Why have a vitro if Mercadona or Carrefour already cooks for us?
Rodilla has another question: if that happens… Exactly, what role will the supers come to play? He does not believe that we are heading towards the culinary dystopia predicted by Juan Roig, although he does not see it as unreasonable that in the future our way of relating to cooking at home will change. Instead of being just another household chore, cooking would become an activity “playful”.
From Mercadona and super regional
In any case, precooked foods and the success of ‘Ready to Eat’ are not the only trends that mark the food distribution sector. Internally, there are three other equally clear phenomena: Mercadona’s expansionwhich already has between 25 and 30% market value share, white label success and the endurance of the super regionals. For Rodilla it is a reflection of how our own way of buying and filling the refrigerator has changed.
“Not only has Mercadona grown, but all organized distribution has grown in recent years. You see how we bought in 2000 and how we buy now and you see how the supermarket in general or the large supermarkets has grown. Between Mercadona and Lidl in the last 25 years, practically 25 share points have grown,” he points out. At the opposite pole is the branch of the sector that has lost ground: the “lifelong specialists”as fishmongersbutchers or fruit shops.
“The Spanish market was very particular and there were many specialists. In recent years we have seen that it has been disappearing and that purchase has been transferred to organized distribution,” Rodilla explains. In the specific case of Mercadona, its ability to move from an autonomous model, focused on Levante, to a national one stands out, expanding its network and betting on your own brand.
Curiously, one of the great beneficiaries of this reorganization of the sector has been regional chainsas Froiz, MasymasConsum, Gadis… In 2024, a company report estimated its share at almost 18%more or less the same percentage as it is now. “The Spanish market is very atomized, but many of the super regionals are leaders in each of their regions.”
Not only geographical proximity, proximity to customers and the increase in its catalog play in its favor. Over time, thanks to their commitment to fresh merchandise, they have managed to position themselves to become almost the heirs of the butcher shops, fishmongers, and neighborhood fruit shops that have been closing.
“The super regional, the one you know and have in mind, in the end is the next step,” says Rodilla: “Maybe I’ll stop going to the butcher shop, but I go to the super regional that I know. In a way it’s like the intermediate step.”
Images | Worldpanel by Numerator, Wikipedia 1 and 2 and Carrefour
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