Mercadona’s future looks less like that of a supermarket and more like that of a takeaway restaurant

Juan Roig, founder of Mercadona, is clear that in 2050 there will be no kitchens. Is an affirmation who, in addition to being daring, is, of course, interested. Especially taking into account that the Valencian company has managed to dominate the niche of distribution of prepared dishes with an iron fist, where its market share is 51.2%. The path is clear for Mercadona’s future: betting on saying goodbye to cooking at home.

Store 9. Mercadona has launched its new logistics project with the name “Tienda 9”, which is the successor to the previous “Tienda 8”. Like Roig himself claimed“We have not been very original (with the name).” With an investment of 3.7 billion euros, the chain will transform its 1,600 centers in Spain and Portugal and will do so with a new criterion. After optimizing space and energy efficiency with the previous modelthe goal now is to completely redesign the user experience and internal workflow.

Sort by temperature. The great revolution is not aesthetic, but structural. Mercadona abandons the “business” organization (greengrocer, butcher, etc.) to move to process management. In practice, this means that the supermarket will be sorted according to the storage temperature of the products. Thus, frozen vegetables will no longer be next to fresh fruits, but with the rest of the sub-zero products to optimize the cold chain and the speed of purchase.

Goodbye, Mr. fruit seller. “Store 9” also marks the end of traditional counters. Here Mercadona is committed to total self-service: meats and fish They will be presented exclusively on trays. Handling, cutting and packaging are moved to central or internal workshopswhich will free up the space facing the public to convert it into more agile linear free-service areas. If you want to talk to the fruit seller or the butcher, forget it. Here everything is designed for minimal human interaction and of course, to optimize (further) margins. More efficient, no doubt, but also dangerously lonely.

Six strategic areas. In this new design of each store there will be six different areas. The core will be refrigerated, frozen and trays, which will be next to each other to facilitate logistics. To this will be added areas of products at room temperature, a fruit and vegetable section that will gain square meters and of course, the big star: the prepared food area, which will no longer look like that, but something else.

dark kitchenbut in pretty. The success of prepared dishes is so overwhelming at Mercadona that strengthening this section is a key component of this new “Store 9” logistics project. The supermarket looks less and less like a supermarket and more and more like a restaurant in which there are no tables, only take-out food. He controversial concept of ghost kitchens (dark kitchen) that experienced overwhelming success and an equally devastating fall is now recovering but in an “official” way and with the support of the chain that is converting it into an everyday occurrence. It is already known: Now we buy time, not food.

Ready to eat. This strategy responds to a clear trend: people are excited about ready-to-eat meals. This section already has a turnover of more than 1,000 million euros and is growing at a rate of 20% annually. Mercadona wants to promote this section, so not only will expand the product rangebut will install more tables and chairs in the establishments. The “super” will come dangerously close to the traditional restaurant, thus competing with a sector that was already competitive.

The revolution made a supermarket. The evolution of prepared meals at Mercadona is worthy of studying in MBAs. The chain conceived its table and chair areas as a service aimed at passing customers or workers from nearby offices. However, the aggressive pricing policy—bars and restaurants cannot compete—has transformed these corners into improvised soup kitchens and neighborhood meeting points. Depending on the location, there is a certain friction: what for some is a vital savings solution, for the customer looking for quick and aseptic purchases acts as a deterrent: the supermarket is no longer as efficient for them.

More efficiency than ever. This transformation will also bring improvements in energy efficiency. According to Mercadona’s estimates, this strategy will allow an additional saving of 10% in energy and 40% in water compared to the previous model, which in fact It was already an example of efficiency. Each store will have a technical update of its machine room, although at the moment it does not seem that they are going to offer self-checkouts: Roig’s model continues to prioritize the passage through an attended checkout, maintaining – there – the human factor at the last point of contact of an increasingly automated store.

Image | Flikr (Informative Board), Wikimedia Commons (Carlos)

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