“This is more practical and faster. You eat for 6 euros and I don’t spend 45 minutes. I haven’t eaten off the menu since summer.” The phrase It is from David, 35 years old, technical director of a gym in Madrid. The World He interviewed him recently while having lunch at a Mercadona in the capital. His comment may seem like a simple anecdote, but it summarizes a phenomenon that in the coming years threatens to transform the healthcare sector. retailhospitality and even our eating habits: the struggle between the ‘menus of the day’ of bars and supermarket dishes.
For now the figures are clear.
Why are you going to the supermarket? A few years ago (not that many) that question would sound like a truism. You go to the supermarket to buy fruit, meat, preserves, milk… whatever you need to fill the pantry. At most you leave there with toiletries or perhaps home decorations, if we’re talking about stores. hypermarket type.
However, more and more people go to the supermarket with another purpose: to eat. Literally. Go to a Mercadona, Carrefour or Alcampo (to name just three chains with a presence in Spain) and buy ready-to-eat dishes. Some stores even offer tables, chairs and microwaves. “Merchants” they call them. If you look splendid you can even buy a cup of freshly ground coffee.
And do they work? Yes. A few days ago a reporter from The World visited a Mercadona in the center of Madrid, and found that, in addition to people shopping, there was a dining room full of customers eating dishes prepared in the supermarket itself. Three caregivers were having lunch together. At another table a woman was eating a hamburger while looking at her cell phone.
Tables. Unknown. Dishes. Exactly the same as in a bar. And it is not something that happens only in Madrid. Not even in Mercadona. In another neighborhood, a retiree waits in line at a Carrefour to buy a rice and hake salad in green sauce. It is the menu of the day from the store, although his idea is actually to take it home.
What does the data say? That the above are more than simple scenes of customs. It is proof that something is changing in the sector. retaila change that connects with our eating habits and threatens to hit traditional hospitality completely. According to data from the consulting firm Circana, the distribution sector already accounts for almost the fourth part (23%) of spending on food outside the home. And it is not the only indicator that points in that direction.
Another recent NIQ report estimates that the prepared food sector in supermarkets, a broad category that includes everything from refrigerated dishes to other ready-to-eat dishes, recorded year-on-year growth in 2025. 11%well above the 5.8% at which the food distribution as a whole grows. In net terms, this translates into a turnover of billions of euros.
In general, Asefapre, the association of manufacturers of prepared dishes, estimates that in 2025 per capita consumption amounted to 18 kg per person, 5% more than in 2024. Its most popular products are refrigerated pizzas, frozen potatoes and pasta-based dishes, so it does not exactly coincide with the foods offered in sections such as ‘Ready to eat’ from Mercadona, but it still gives a valuable clue about consumer trends in Spain.
Which chains stand out? In Spain, brands with higher weight In distribution by value quota they are Mercadona, Carrefour and Lidl. The ‘photo’ is not very different when we talk about spending on food. At least that is what the data from Worldpanel by Numerator (Kantar) suggests, which recently disclosed a report which shows that the Valencian chain accounts for a value share in food and beverage consumption of 19.7%. Carrefour reaches 6% and Lidl 5.1%.
The study leaves another interesting reading: with its share of almost 20%, Mercadona far exceeds the sum of bars, cafes and terraces (with a 11.2% share of total value) and independent restaurants, which remain at 8.6%.
That Roig’s chain occupies such a prominent place is no coincidence. Beyond the gap that has been made in the sector retail thanks to the white labelthe group has been betting on its line for years ‘Ready to eat’in which it offers already cooked dishes that can often be enjoyed without having to leave the store. Today the section is implemented in 1,469 stores distributed throughout Spain and Portugal. Only throughout 2025 did the model expand to 210 new premises.
What about the menu of the day? As Víctor, the young man from Madrid with whom we started this report, implies, this new offer of ready-to-eat dishes (many of them based on “traditional recipes”) represents direct competition for bars that offer daily menus.
That’s interesting in itself. However, there is another reason why it is worth paying attention to this struggle between ‘merchants’ and bars: catch the traditional hospitality ‘menu’ in the middle of the crisis. Its format is largely based on affordability, but the escalation of costs in recent years (and which may yet be yet to come) makes it turn out every time more difficult keep them at attractive prices. At least if hoteliers want to maintain their margins.
Have daily menus become more expensive? Yes. The data from the employers’ association show that every day in Spain they continue to serve millions of menusbut that does not mean that they are getting rid of price escalation. Between 2016 and 2024 They became more expensive on average by 19.5% (they went from 11.7 to 14 euros), but even with that increase the increase accumulated by the general CPI is not equal.
A quick Google search arrives to find recent news that warns that in the last decade this increase in prices it’s already over 21%complicating the possibility of finding menus by less than 15 euros.
What does that mean? That things get complicated for hoteliers, forced to maintain a profitability margin that guarantees their businesses and compete with chains such as Mercadona, Alcampo or Carrefour, where customers find dishes at prices that they can hardly match. It recently recognized in an RTVE program Jesús de Prada, hotelier, who insists on how difficult it is to compete with menus that are sold for just seven euros.
“Evidently you can’t compete. Given those prices, it’s impossible. And it shows,” takes over from Prada. How to compete then? Claiming quality: “Our food is all homemade. I don’t know about theirs. I imagine it will be of good quality because it will be regulated, but in the end that is important.”
Is it just a question of prices? No. The phenomenon connects with deeper social changes, which go beyond inflation or even qualities. Víctor’s phrase is once again illuminating. When he explains Why he has decided to eat at Mercadona and not at a neighborhood bar, he does not mention the rates, he says that it is “more practical and faster.” “You eat for six euros and I don’t spend 45 minutes.”
In the merchants The client also seeks agility and time savings, to which is added flexibility, variety in the offering, and room to adapt the menu to their particular tastes. Added to this are factors that even go beyond consumption and nutrition, such as an increasingly accelerated pace of life, the increase in single-person householdsteleworking and even tourism.
Images | Wikipedia, Andrew E. Larsen (Flickr) and Mercadona
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