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Prepared food already represents a business of 3,000 million for Mercadona. And that is a problem for McDonald’s and Burger King

April 13, 2026 by usatoday24

The proverb says that a picture is worth a thousand words. The success of the so-called ‘merchants’ Supermarkets that are hybridizing to become places where you can buy and consume already cooked dishes are not only measured in images and words. It can also be followed with something much more forceful: figures. One of the most resounding he just left her Mercadona. Throughout 2025, the Valencian chain had a turnover of around 700 million euros in Spain through its section ‘Ready to eat’. If we expand the focus to include its pre-cooked offering (refrigerated, trays…) the joint business volume in Spain and Portugal amounts to 3,000 million euros. What has happened? We have just obtained data that helps us better understand how the ‘Ready to Eat’ section is working for Mercadona. According to the information advanced by Food RetailIn 2025, the Valencian chain invoiced 700 million euros in Spain through this channel. Perhaps it seems like a discreet figure when compared to its global sales, which were close to 39.8 billion in Spain, but it is interesting for two big reasons. First, because the ‘Ready to Eat’ section is young. It was not launched until 2018. Since then Mercadona has been expanding it throughout its network (in 2025 it reached 210 new supermarkets) until it was present, at the end of last year, in 1,469 points of sale from Spain and Portugal. The second reason is that in reality ‘Ready to eat’ is only one of the multiple channels that allow Mercadona to capitalize on the growing demand for already cooked food. If the entire business and its turnover in Spain and Portugal are taken into account, the level of income is much higher. How much do you earn then? In total, if we count both the business generated by the ‘Ready to eat’ section and the sale of pre-cooked food (creams, packaged chicken or refrigerated pizza, for example), Mercadona entered around 3 billion of euros in Spain and Portugal. Not only does it represent just over 7% of the company’s global turnover, it also shows a growth of 20%, which confirms the potential of that line of business. The figure helps to understand Mercadona’s commercial strategy, which has been betting on the ‘Ready to eat’ section for years (in 2025 it implemented it in 250 new super) and in recent months it has redoubled its bet, adding to its offer of dishes and desserts a new service of freshly ground coffee. The cooked food sections also play a decisive role in the so-called ‘Store 9’the new establishment format that the company wants to implement in its network. Does the data matter that much? It is certainly striking. FRS contributes another brushstroke which helps to understand to what extent the sale of pre-cooked or ready-to-eat food has grown in Mercadona. The 3,000 million euros registered in Spain and Portugal in 2025 far exceed McDonald’s annual sales in Spain (around 2 billion euros) or Burger King (others 1.5 billion). In fact, it almost equals the sum of both subsidiaries. It’s not surprising at all. Mercadona has conquered 20% of the entire food and beverage business (in value share) and ships a large part of the hamburgers with buns sold in Spain. According to the Numerator signatureis behind approximately 10.2% of consumption occasions. They are just nine points lower than the national market leader McDonald’s (19.5%). Does it only happen with Mercadona? At all. The chain stands out for its considerable market share, but it is not the only one seeking to benefit from the growing demand for already cooked food. In February, the consulting firm NielsenIQ estimated that “prepared and ready-to-eat food solutions” are growing at a rate of more than 10% in supermarkets and hypermarkets, which is in turn shaping a billion-dollar business. “Right now this segment represents a total of about 3.7 billion,” explains Nacho Biedmatechnician of the consulting firm, in an interview with elDiario. There are analysts who calculate that the distribution sector (which includes supermarkets) already monopolizes 23% of what we spend on food outside the home. Why this change? Because consumer habits are not immutable. We do not eat the same, nor in the same way nor in the same places as our grandparents. And our grandchildren probably have different habits too. I predicted it last year Juan Roig, predicting that in the middle of this century Spanish homes will no longer have kitchens, so supermarkets will become more than just the place where we buy food to fill our refrigerators: they will be our great reference in food. Beyond these changes at the domestic level, sections like ‘Ready to Eat’ play a great role. They offer customers variety, agility and, above all, rates that traditional bars can hardly match. Prepared meals from supermarkets are in a way the successors of a ‘menu of the day’ that has been in crisis for yearssuffocated by rising prices. More and more people stop going to the corner restaurant to spend 14 euros in a menu of first, second and dessert that will take you 45 minutes to consume. He goes to an Alcampo, Carrefour or Mercadona, buys a couple of dishes for 10 euros and devours them in less than half an hour in the dining room located in the supermarket itself. Many people even take cooked food to devour at home. Images | Mercadona Via | FRS In Xataka | Very few national supermarkets are resisting Mercadona: regional chains like Froiz are

RAM memory already represents 35% of the cost of a PC. The only solution that HP finds: capable equipment

February 26, 2026 by usatoday24

The PC industry – like many others – is facing a perfect storm that is completely altering manufacturing costs. As revealed by Karen Parkhill, CFO of HP, RAM memory has increased its prices so much that its specific weight in the cost of a PC is now almost unsustainable. Bad business. 35% of what your PC costs you is RAM. According to the directive, RAM memory has gone from representing an acceptable 15–18% of the bill of materials for your PCs and laptops to representing a suffocating 35%. The change is drastic, and has occurred in just one fiscal quarter. Things will get worse. This increase is due to the fact that according to HP, memory costs have doubled sequentially and have grown by 100% in a few months. Not only that: the company’s forecast is pessimistic, and they expect prices to rise as 2026 progresses. From more expensive PCs… The direct consequence for users is inevitable: the prices of PCs and laptops are going to rise. Analysts are already warning of increases of between 15% and 20% in the RRP of these devices, and in fact HP has already begun to make changes to its price tags precisely to protect its profit margins in the face of the massive increase in the price of critical components such as DRAM memory and NAND chips in SSD units. …to capable PCs. But the price is not the only thing that will change. To keep the equipment “affordable”, HP is adopting another strategy that we had already seen in mobile phones: that of “cut specifications.” This means that we will see more low- and mid-range configurations with less RAM than one would expect in 2026. The measure is clearly intended to save costs at the sacrifice of performance. At the moment they are saving the ballot. At HP they are diversifying their suppliers and cutting back on specifications and extras to compensate for the extra cost of chips. The company is even using AI systems to optimize its planning processes and has halved the time it takes to qualify new materials for agile component changes. The demand for HP PCs is still there: its personal systems division grew 11% in revenue. The company warns, however, that this trend could fall: high prices could cause sales to slow down. Damn data centers. The big culprit of everything is AI, of course, which is causing most of the production of DRAM memory chips and NAND chips to be destined for the AI accelerators of NVIDIA and other manufacturers and, of course, for the gigantic data centers that are being planned everywhere. In addition, the industry is focusing on HBM memories, which are much more powerful for AI applications but which cause the production of “traditional” memories to suffer. Hello, 8 GB of RAM in 2026. For many years it seemed that 8 GB of RAM had become the de facto standard in our laptops and many PCs, but a couple of years ago we clearly made the leap to 16 GB. This crisis threatens to take us back to the past and see many “affordable” computers with 8 GB of RAM. Can we survive with this memory? Most likely yes… if our use of the equipment is relatively modest. The 16 GB really helps a lot now that we have become accustomed to opening a lot of browser tabs and applications in an era where these consume more and more memory. 8 GB seemed like a thing of the past, but we fear that we will have to learn to live with that type of configuration again. In Xataka | If you were thinking about setting up a NAS to create your own cloud, we have bad news: AI has other plans

The lack of protein represents a risk to our health. These are the key symptoms to identify it

April 19, 2025 by usatoday24

We live perhaps in him historical context of greater food abundance. It is difficult to find an era in which we have had a greater variety of food at our disposal. This is especially true for meat and fish, two of the main sources of protein. In general, today We consume more proteins than we needbut the general does not always apply and The lack of protein It can also occur in some people, for example cases of certain diets or between people suffering from certain autoimmune diseases. That is why we can ask ourselves, how can we know if we are not consuming enough proteins? Proteins are one of the three macronutrients considered basic for the proper functioning of our body, the other two fats or lipids, and carbohydrates. We associate these nutrients to meatfish, milk products, but are present in one way or another (in their constituent blocks, for example) in a multitude of foods such as legumes or soy. Proteins, although we put them in the same group are not a homogeneous group of compounds: our body has thousands of protein types. Of course, all of them are composed of a series of amino acids chained 20 of these “blocks” are enough to form this myriad of proteins in our body. Our body is able to synthesize 11 of These amino acids But for the other nine, called essential amino acidswe must obtain them from food. For this we need proteins: our digestive system breaks them down in amino acids so that our body can rebuild them according to their need. We call “Complete proteins“To foods containing all essential amino acids. A list of food with complete proteins would include meats such as beef or chicken, fish, eggs, dairy, soy or quinoa. If our body does not consume enough proteins or other amino acid sources, we can fall into the lack of any of these nine essential amino acids, so that our body can lose the ability to generate its own proteins which results in problems such as the Hypooproteinemiathe lack of protein in the blood. Symptoms Before the lack of proteins becomes a problem, we can pay attention to some symptoms that alert us to lack. Health experts from the University of California in Los Angeles They prepared a time ago a list With six indications that can help us detect the lack of protein. In the article they explain that fragility in hair and nails is sometimes the first sign of a protein deficiency. Another sign is in the feeling of weakness and hunger. Hunger usually indicates the lack of food, sometimes it can also indicate a more concrete nutritional lack. A third indication is in our immune system. The lack of protein can limit our body’s ability to defend against external threats so we can find ourselves more sickly due to this lack. The lack of protein can also manifest in changes in humor or difficulties in thinking. This is due to fluctuations in blood sugar levels and the effect of proteins in brain neurotransmitters responsible for regulating our mood. The fifth indication indicated by these experts is muscle weakness. Proteins are indispensable to build and repair muscle mass, without it we can end up losing it. The last of these symptoms is in the Appearance of fractures by stress in the bones. The integrity of these also depends on this type of compounds. Proteins are fundamental to our body and the difficulty in creating new molecules can cause us problems of very diverse type. As usual in nutrition, excess can also be linked to some problems. Some estimates calculate that excessive protein consumption may appear if we take more than two grams daily per kg of body mass. A varied and healthy diet is key to avoiding problems both by excess as defaultin regards to proteins and with regard to any other nutrient. This is especially important for those who, by their own or for health, must eliminate some usual piece of their menu. No food is essential but there are nutrients that they are. In Xataka | Proteic fever has invaded supermarkets. The problem is how they suggest that we take proteins Image | Shayda Torabi

It’s called byd and represents everything China has to win

April 8, 2025 by usatoday24

We do not know how long it will last but we do know that we are living a few days that will happen in the history of financial markets. That they become a mere anecdote in books or that, really, becomes days, weeks or a historical period to study is something that time will only tell us. Anyway, since last April 2, something has changed in the world car market. Something that threatens to break the market as we have understood so far. Why does an electric car have less autonomy than the announcing Byd is emerging at a unique opportunity. A disruptive tariff. “A hole we have never seen”. With these words, Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, defined the possibility of cars to export tariffs to the United States. From April 2 they apply at 25%. A figure that substantially increases each vehicle or that dynamite the benefit that each company can obtain if it does not touch the prices. The pieces have also been granted to build those cars. For example, if a car is manufactured in the United States, the product has to increase because the transmission, engine or any other piece has been manufactured outside its borders. And, in addition, there are also A 25% tariff to tariff and aluminum They are key … indeed, for car production. A complicated calculation. The problem of which numerous experts are notifying is that it is impossible for the United States to attract a complete supply chain for all cars that buys in a short time space that is the alleged great objective of the measure. In BBC They explain with a map the complex process that carries the production of a simple piston, which moves as a fish in the water between the borders of the United States, Canada and Mexico. Farley’s words are also the company that produces the most within the United States After Tesla. The impact despite everything is huge, how to calculate the damage to General Motors, for example? We know that last year the United States imported vehicles and car parts worth $ 475,000 million in 2024. Of that figure, it is estimated that more or less half were represented by vehicles. And of those vehicles, between 50 and 60% arrived from Europe, they collect in eldiario.es. It does not seem accidental that the European Union is already proposing lift tariffs to industrial goods. First consequences. Given this context, there are two options. The first, of course, upload prices. It is estimated that, on average, and depending on the base price of the vehicle an American will pay Between 5,000 and $ 15,000 more per car bought. Given that climb, it is difficult to think that manufacturers can put on the market the same amount of cars as at the moment. Mercedes considers abandoning the sale of Mercedes Gla, one of its less small vehicles and, therefore, with the lowest profit margin, according to Bloomberg. Those who are not thinking about it are Stellantis. The company has already announced the Temporary dismissal of 900 employees. In addition, a factory in Ontario (Canada) and another in Toluca (Mexico) will be closed two weeks and all month of April, respectively. Toyota, which was already reducing its production in the United States, It is also going down the rhythm in Mexico. And Volkswagen has ordered to stop shipments from Mexico and Europe, according to Automotive News. The fifth producer. If we quickly review the companies that have begun to make their ads we find that we have talked about Toyota, Volkswagen and Stellantis. If we add General Motors and the Hyundai/Kia group to the equation we have the CInc major cars manufacturers of 2024. Last year, Byd already touched on the door of this group of the five. Its 4.27 million units produced were placed as the sixth producer of the world. The forecasts for this year are 5.5 million units. If they were fulfilled, last year they would have earned him to overcome Stellantis (5.41 million units) and start seeing General Motors on the horizon (fourth position, he touched the six million units). Bad forecasts. The worst thing for Stellantis is that the company was already dragging problems last year. In fact, in 2023 it came from touching 6.40 million cars made but their future, especially in the United Stateshe has prevented him. General Motors also lost bellows in 2024 when he made almost 200,000 cars less than the previous year. In both cases They are especially affected for 25% tariffs to the car. Stellantis manufactures 57% of the cars it sells. And General Motors reduces that 52%figure. In both cases a large part of its production to Mexico and Canada has been transferred where they produce 39% and 30% of their cars, respectively. The latter is especially important because Canada has already warned the United States that it will impose tariffs of 25% return to cars that export to the country. It is estimated that Canada imported from the United States in 2024 vehicles worth 15,500 million dollars. Nor are Toyota and Volkswagen saved. General Motors and Stellantis are the greats indicated in this case because they are the closest of Byd. But it is expected that Toyota and Volkswagen face very hard economic conditions if an understanding between Japan, the European Union and the United States is not reached. Toyota sold in 2024 2.33 million cars in the United States. Of them, only 1.27 million produced within the country. Volkswagen sold more than one million of cars last year in the United States. 80% of cars that it sells there would be affected by import tariffs (and it would be necessary to calculate the increase in those manufactured there). The right moment. The global car context cannot be, right now, more favorable to byd. The company does not produce vehicles for the United States or manufacture within its borders so it is a market that was non -existent and that will continue … Read more

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