Spain

How is it possible that Spain is freezing in the middle of a ‘warmer than normal’ winter?

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When you look out the window these days, it’s easy to ask yourself a very clear question: didn’t they say that This was going to be a warmer than normal winter.? With the storm Francis opening the door, followed by Ingrid and Joseph, and the snow level plummeting up to 500 meters in the northwest, the thermal sensation in January 2026 is far from “mild”. And although we can think of an error by the AEMET in its predictions at the beginning of the season, the problem is in the probabilities What was said. The AEMET in his initial prediction For this winter they did not use a crystal ball to ensure days of sun and beach, but rather they resorted to prediction models that showed a probabilistic situation: they placed almost all of Spain in the warm tertile. This means that there was a very high probability that the average temperature for the entire quarter was among the 33% warmest winters in the historical record. The chance of it being a colder winter was just 10%. When it comes to rainfall, the truth is that They didn’t get too wet at the AEMET by giving the same probability for it to be wetter, drier or normal than those of other years. He gave all of these 33%. January 2026. When we stop looking at the probabilistic models and move on to meteorological reality, we already see that there are substantial differences. And it is that Throughout this month we have had a severe entry of arctic air, notices in all communities and relevant snowfalls in the Cantabrian Mountains and the Pyrenees. It’s a bookish winter episode. Data is still missing. A freezing week does not make a cold winter, and everything indicates that after these storms that we are enduring right now, temperatures will rebalance between 1 and 3 degrees above the table. And for the AEMET this winter we have not yet had any cold wave which would mark the third consecutive year without them in Spain. According to the historical series, since 1975 the duration of cold waves on the peninsula has been reduced by 1.2 days per decade and that is why this winter is presented as one more to reduce this average in our climatological history. The NAO factor. The models certainly cannot see the climatological “day by day” coming very far in advance, since seasonal predictions, which are based on systems like ECMWFhave limited resolution. In this case we are talking about contextual tools for energy management or agriculture, not a “horoscope” to know if we will be able to ski without snow in the mountains. What the European winter climate largely depends on is the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Arctic Oscillation (AO). In this case a positive NAO indicates a westward, warm and humid circulation. But if we talk about a negative NAO, it translates into a blockage that allows polar air to escape to the south, which is what is happening to us right now. The problem. It is precisely because these coupled atmosphere-ocean models have a low ability to anticipate what phases the NAO will be in months in advance. They get the global thermal signal very well, such as background warming, but it is difficult for them to see the specific sequence of cold entries. A change of pattern. The debate about whether the “AEMET fails” with its predictions usually hides a deeper climate reality. And a “warm winter” in the current context of climate change does not mean the disappearance of winter, but rather it means that mild days and mild minimum temperatures are becoming more frequent, and cold waves are less common and less lasting. Next weeks. If we look beyond this week full of water we find ourselves again faced with uncertainty. According to the prediction made by the AEMETit is expected that for the week of February 2 to 8 a similar meteorological pattern will continue with Atlantic storms at our altitude, so there would be water throughout all of Spain. What the models predict, although everything can change, is that it will be presented in the west of the peninsula an extremely wet period over the next two weekswith rainfall that would be counted per liters of water in very specific areas of Spain and Portugal. In Xataka | We have always believed that London is very rainy and that Barcelona is not. The only problem is that it’s a lie

Technology salaries in Spain do not depend on the skills of the employee. They depend on the type of company

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The technological salaries in Spain They no longer depend so much on how good you are at programming, but on the type of company you work for. The same senior profile can earn from figures typical of a small traditional SME to salaries that compete with the best engineers at Google or Meta, just for changing the type of company. At least that theory is what emerges from a salary analysis carried out by the technological employment platform Manfred, based on the observations of a former Uber engineer: in technology there is not one type of salary, but there are three, and it depends on the type of company in which you work. The “trimodal” model of technological salaries. The “trimodal” concept explains that the technology salary distribution It does not form a uniform continuous line that brings together the entire sector, but rather three distinct groups with little overlap between them. Depending on what type of company you are working for, this is how good your salary will be. The analysis is based on the observations of Gergely Orosz, former head of engineering at Uber, who analyzed on his blog the distribution of technological salaries in Europe and highlights that these groups arise from how each company decides to compare itself with the competition when setting compensation. If an SME only needs to compete against other SMEs, their salaries will be lower than those of large corporations that want to compete among themselves. Manfred has adapted that model to the reality of salaries in Spain and shows that a senior engineer can earn from 35,000 euros to 130,000 euros gross annually depending on his company group, even carrying out a job with similar responsibilities. This division makes individual talent matter less than the company’s salary strategy, creating huge gaps for equivalent profiles. Trimodal distribution of salaries in Spain. Source: Manfred Group 1: local companies with technology as support. The companies in the first group see technology as an internal service, similar to an IT department and, at a salary level, they are only compared with close competitors in your sector. In Spain, Manfred describes them as consultancies and large non-digital corporations, with basic selection processes and very hierarchical structures. This first group presents the greatest labor concentration of all of them, but offers the lowest salary rangeplacing 40,000 euros at its most common average. Given that their market is local, their salary structures are within the usual margins in Spain. In this group, the work is predictable, with a good balance between work and personal life, but without significant variable incentives, beyond a possible 10% of the base salary linked to the company’s performance. Group 2: “Scaleups” and technology companies. The second group brings together companies that compete with the entire local and some international technological fabric, raising their salary offers to attract talent or capture it among your competitors. This group includes technological startups that have already surpassed their maturity and are now seeking both national and international growth, with tougher and greater hiring processes. emphasis on autonomy. The salaries of these companies no longer only compete for the best talent at a local level, but also expand it to a European level, which is why they usually offer salaries above 60,000 euros and offer bonuses of up to 20% of the base salary in cash and shares to more experienced engineers, although not always on a general basis. That is, their remuneration is slightly above the average in Spain. Group 3: giants competing on a global scale. Companies in the third group measure themselves with the international market, attracting talent from anywhere in the world. We are talking about jobs in large technology companies such as Amazon, Uber, Google or Meta, as well as large financial entities that are developing large technological infrastructures. In this group they are shuffled international level salaries in order to attract the best qualified talent regardless of their place of origin. However, to access these positions you also have to overcome much more competitive selection processes. These firms offer salary ranges above 100,000 euros and cash bonuses of around 40% or 50% of the base salary are offered for those employees who achieve all their objectives and actions for all levels, even for junior employees. Not everything is money, what career do you want? Beyond money, each group offers a very different style of work. In Group 1, local companies prioritize stability and work-life balance, with schedules that allow for some flexibilityin addition to offering a greater number of job offers. Instead, Group 3 of global giants brings greater instabilitywith frequent rounds of layoffs when you don’t meet expectations and high turnover because they pay so much to attract only the best. Teleworking is a common practice in Groups 1 and 2, but the large corporations in Group 3 practically they have removed it of their offers and sometimes ask to move close to their main offices in Madrid or Barcelona. The number of job offers in Groups 2 and 3 are much lower than those in Group 1, so it is also more complicated to access a company with these characteristics, making it difficult to jump from one company to another within that same group. In Xataka | The harsh reality of salaries in Spain: the most common gross salary in 2023 did not exceed 16,000 euros per year Image | Unsplash (Sigmund)

now they are 60% of the food that Spain buys

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Spain has changed in many aspects in the last decade, but in few places has a transformation been experienced as rapid and radical as on supermarket shelves. And all on account of the white label. If the ugly duckling of the retail national, a concept associated with a cheap product of questionable quality has come to conquer the baskets (and wallets) of families. We Spaniards are increasingly betting on items from Hacendado, Auchan or Seleqtia compared to other similar ones that are sold with labels other than supermarkets. So much so that if we talk about the food sector, white label dominated last year. 60.5% value sharewith a growth rate much higher than that of brands associated with external manufacturers. Eating the market. The data starts from a study on large consumption carried out by the consulting firm Circana and advanced by EFE. And although it is in tune with other previous ones that reflect the white label boom in the retail Spanish, but that doesn’t stop it from being striking. In 2025, foods sold under “distributor brands” (those directly associated with supermarkets, such as Hacendado in the case of Mercadona or Auchan with Alcampo) accounted for 60.5% in value share. That is, they took six out of every ten euros spent in that niche. Growing faster. The data is conclusive, but is completed with another also recorded by Circa. It’s not just that private labels take up a lot of the money we spend on food when we go to the supermarket. It’s just that they are hoarding more and more. In 2025, spending on these types of items registered a year-on-year growth of 6.3%a striking percentage for three reasons. First because the value of its rivals marketed with a “manufacturer’s brand” grew much less, 1.4%. Second, because that 6.3% doubles the increase in the price of the shopping basket as a whole, which closed 2025 with an increase of 3%. The third reason is that with this increase, private label foods stand out as those that evolve best among all the product categories that are integrated into the “mass consumption”the label with which experts refer to items that are consumed on a massive and daily basis. Are there more indicators? Yes. And they all point in a more or less similar direction. For example, the study indicates that if we talk about general sales of “mass consumption”, excluding fresh products, the market share of the private label is around 51.7% compared to 48.3% for its manufacturer rivals. That does not mean that Hacendado, Seleqtia and other similar brands rule all branches of the sector. In fact, there is one in particular in which we Spaniards continue to opt mostly for brands that have nothing to do with supermarkets: beverages. In it 66.2% of family spending of 2025 has gone to manufacturer brands compared to 33.8% of private label. What does that mean? In practice, when we want to buy a soft drink or a bottle of water, we mainly choose recognized brands, such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi or Bezoya or Font Vella, rather than those from Dia, Lidl or Eroski. The war of the brands. Circa’s data is just a brushstroke in a much larger picture: the one that has been showing for years the growth of the white label in Spain. The data may vary from study to study, but the trend is always the same. If years ago we customers had reservations about resorting to the supermarkets’ own assortment, those doubts seem to have evaporated. A few years ago Kantar Worldpanel published a report which showed that in 2021 17.2% of customers filled their basket only with white brands, in 2022 it was already 19.5% and in 2021 21.3%. If we talk about spending, during that period Hacendado and other similar brands went from accounting for 42% to 48%. Other analysis published by The National suggest that in a matter of a decade (between 2013 and 2023) the market share of the brands controlled by the supermarkets themselves increased by 11.2 percentage points. Standing out in Europe. The white label has been the protagonist of such a boom in Spain (in 2024 it was already dominating more than 50% of the shopping basket in volume) that has made our country stand out in Europe. Last year Simon-Kucher he wondered how many Spaniards buy this type of items “exclusively” and discovered that the answer is 26%. It is the highest percentage, along with France. In the Netherlands they are 25%, in the United Kingdom 20% and in Germany 19%. If we also include those who “predominantly” bet on these products in their basket (not just exclusively), the figure shoots up to 64%, six points above France and far from the rest of the countries. “The high sensitivity to price and changes in purchasing habits have led to private label becoming the first choice for most households,” explained to Expansion Javier Rubio, from the Simon-Kucher firm. But… Why? This boom responds to several factors. One, key one, is what the consultant comments on: the price and the influence it has had on our shopping basket in recent years, marked by inflation. However, other relevant aspects come into play and have more to do with the commercial strategy of supermarkets, the places where we fill the refrigerator. In 2024 Promarca calculation that in the previous five years the presence of white brands on the shelves of the main supermarkets had increased by 13%. On the contrary, third-party brands decreased by around 23%. The association not only detected the disappearance of thousands of items with non-supermarket labels, it also verified that those that remained were charged more expensive on average. “The public price of manufacturer brand products set by the distribution is between 5% and 160% more expensive than that of private label brands,” warned. Whether your estimates are correct or not, the truth is that we buy more private label because we have it more at hand. Three chains, … Read more

Going to the mountains to go hiking is increasingly popular in Spain. And those who are suffering are the golden eagles

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Go on the weekend to take a route through the countryside It is a plan that can be very playful and, above all, healthy for us humans. But… What happens to the native fauna of the area? This is a question that It’s starting to resonate a lot on the internet.by focusing on the impact that our presence in the mountains can have on the most emblematic species of Spain such as the golden eagle or the partridge that have begun to have a lesser presence. A technological solution. The main idea that was in mind was that the animals were crashing into the hikers and causing great damage to their presence on the mountain. But to solve this mystery, biologists chose to put a GPS device on the eagles to monitor what they were doing. And the reality is that they are not crashing into us, but rather they are fleeing. The result. In this way, when it is confirmed that we do not have any type of collision with the eagles that could respond to their change in behavior, we have to go where they go when we humans are in the mountains. The University of Valencia in 2019 led this investigationdetecting that without a doubt there is a “weekend effect.” This effect can be seen in telemetry data which shows that during Saturdays and Sundays, the eagles are forced to modify their hunting routes. All this to avoid humans who, among other things, may be scaring away their targets on the ground. A greater expense. When these birds have to go to other areas to look for food because of hikers, they have to cover a longer distance than they are normally used to. This only means greater physiological stress and energy expenditure that can compromise their reproduction or survival, even if they never touch a human. But in addition, this translates into a situation known as ‘Landscape of Fear’, where the animal perceives the human not as a physical obstacle, but as a potential predator, which triggers its stress and cortisol levels, affecting its ability to breed. The real threats. To understand the real danger that these birds are in, we must look at the different mortality statistics in Spain. In this case, although a sedentary lifestyle causes great discomfort to the animals, the causes of death are much more industrial and violent. According to the studies collected, such as those of the GER-EA projectthe main cause of death is collision with power lines and electrocution. This is followed by poisoning and shooting, with 13 and 8% respectively. But what is clear is that humans are not a direct cause of death due to collisions with us when we are sedentary in the countryside. Distinction matters. Stating that eagles collide with hikers may sound spectacular, but it diverts attention from the real problem that we can solve as mountain users. The study in Ecology and Evolution (2025) and data from Ecologists in Action They point out that the problem is Yontrusion into breeding areas. Climbing, off-road vehicles and off-road hiking near the nests cause the adults to abandon the nest or the chicks, leaving them exposed to the cold or predators. Images | Mathew Schwartz In Xataka | Japan has been looking at its bears in fear for months due to a record wave of attacks. Now he looks at them with something else: gluttony

Spain is going to freeze this weekend

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As Samu Rivas saidthe image that heads this piece does not reflect what is going to happen in 240 hours. It reflects what is going to happen in three days and that is the key to everything that is going to happen. Because the four big models (GFS/ECMWF/ICON/GEM) seem to have agreed: cold, rain and a very — very — busy weekend. What has happened? What is going to happen? What has happened is that an anticyclonic block has formed between Greenland and the Scandinavian peninsula. It is a large wall of high pressure that will interrupt the zonal flow and force the polar jet to lower latitude. From there, there were doubts about what was going to happen. But those doubts have been dissipating: everything seems to indicate that the jet will descend so low that it will focus directly on Spain, guiding fronts and cold masses from the north. Greeting Ingrid. According to Roberto Grandathe first fronts will affect us starting tomorrow and, from that moment, the storm Ingrid will not stop sending us “various bands of instability throughout Friday and the weekend, bringing rain, wind and snow.” What does this mean? That a mass of maritime polar air will invade the Peninsula from the northwest. That will cause temperatures to plummet to -2 degrees on Friday, but it will also mean that it will rain (a lot) throughout the Atlantic slope. The snow level on Friday will reach 500 meters. That is, the risk is going to be high. And the weekend? If the models are correct, on Saturday we may see snow in many inland provincial capitals and on Sunday rain will be widespread throughout the country (except the Mediterranean coast). Are we facing a new Filomena? It doesn’t seem plausible to meet with the amounts of snow that we saw in Madrid in January 2021, but obviously it is not impossible (unlikely, however). What is true is that every once in a while we expect an ‘Ice and Snow Apocalypse’ and most of the time nothing happens. The important thing is to remember that a big snowfall is not necessary for Spain to collapse and the problems to grow. We better be attentive. Image | Meteociel In Xataka | After the cold comes something much more problematic: the explosive cyclogenesis that AEMET predicts for the Mediterranean

Spain is stopping making its potato tortillas at home. And that is why the Mercadona supplier is growing by 20%

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After decades of debate Spain hasn’t decided yet Whether or not the tortilla should contain onion, what thousands and thousands of Spaniards do seem to be clear about is that the ideal is for someone else to cook it. More and more people prefer to go from peeling potatoes, heating oil and making their own tortillas to buying them directly at the supermarket. And so is making gold to one of Mercadona’s allied companies, a Navarrese firm which in 2025 increased its turnover by 20% to reach almost 200 million euros and this year it hopes to make another growth spurt to reach 230. It is the financial data of a company in the food sector, but it also tells us a lot about the market and our consumer habits. Sincebollists V.S. concebollistas. It is not easy to classify the Spanish population into tight compartments, but there is something that does not fail: the majority of 49.4 million of people who live in this country can be defined as sincebollists either concebollistas depending on whether you prefer the potato omelette (one of the great emblems of the native cuisine) with or without onion. The curious thing is that both seem to increasingly opt to abandon the stove and buy ready-made tortillas. At least that’s what they suggest. the latest data from Grupo Elaborados Naturales, Mercadona supplier and one of the largest tortilla manufacturers in the country. One figure: 197 million. The company presume that since its founding in 2006, it has managed to achieve “a dizzying pace” of growth of between 15 and 40% annually. 2025 has not been an exception. His last balance shows that last year it had a turnover of 197 million, 20% more than the previous year. This year it hopes to maintain that pace with another growth of 16.7% that will allow it to reach a turnover of around 230 million. As? Basically with your offer of refrigerated and frozen tortillas, although in the HORECA channel (the professional hospitality industry) also works with processed potatoes and vegetables. 2026, big. To achieve this growth, the company has redoubled its industrial muscle. The firm has dedicated approximately 40 million euros to strengthening its facilities, expanding its factory in Funes (Navarra) by 20,000 square meters and equipping itself with 12 new lines which will allow it to double the production capacity in that plant: from 300,000 units per day to 600,000. The company assures that it will also generate hundreds of jobs. In total, the company has three factories: Funes, dedicated to the production of tortillas; that of Corella (Navarra), which combines the manufacture of tortillas with prepared refrigerated potato-based dishes; and Aguilar del Río Alhama (La Rioja), where 150 people work dedicated to cooking migas and ‘fifth range’ foods (ready to eat) with vegetables. Apart from the national market, the company exports to a dozen and a half countries. The (long) shadow of Mercadona. Beyond its production capacity, there is one fact about the company that draws attention: its weight in the sector. Elaborados Naturales has reached a market share in the ‘potato tortillas’ category of 56% in large national distribution. This enormous footprint is better understood when knowing a key fact about the Navarrese company: its alliance with Mercadona. The firm is a supplier to the Juan Roig chain, which has in turn expanded throughout the sector until it has gained a market share of between 25 and 30%a percentage that has been reinforced thanks to its good rhythm of growth. More than just a business balance sheet. The balance sheet of Elaborados Naturales is nothing more than that: the balance sheet of a company in the food industry. If it is interesting to read beyond the company’s offices, it is because it connects with other underlying trends that are clearly identifiable in both the industry and Spanish society. For example, the growing demand of prepared foods. The latest data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food (MITECO) they talk to us of an increase in the consumption of prepared dishes of around 6% while that of fish, fruits and vegetables declines. Much of it Of that demand is also satisfied in supermarkets. Rain of millions. A good example is Mercadona, which has seen how its line of ready-to-eat dishes has been taking over a growing gap in that business niche. Its success (also supported by white label) is in turn boosting its extensive ecosystem of suppliers, including Elaborados. In fact, the tortilla manufacturer is just one of the many companies that have seen their turnover grow by close to 20% in recent years driven largely by the commercial expansion of the Valencian chain. Images | Kent Wang (Flickr) and Natural Prepared In Xataka | Years ago Mercadona decided to conquer the market with its white brands. And that is making gold for some companies

They are already the nationality that adds the most new members in Spain, surpassing Colombians

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Spain closed 2025 with more than 3.1 million foreign contributors to Social Securityand with a growing weight of immigration in job creation. Official data not only show that a good part of the new work generated in Spain is being filled with labor from other countries, but also that the nationality of these new affiliates is also changing. In 2025, Venezuelans have become the nationality that has grown the most in new foreign affiliations to Social Security, above Colombians. This means that they lead the increase in registrations during the last year, but they are not the largest group if we look at the total number of foreign affiliates, a place that continues to be occupied by workers from Morocco and Romania. Record number of foreign affiliates in 2025. According to December 2025 dataSocial Security registered 3,135,581 foreign affiliates after adjusting for calendar and seasonality, which represents more than 800,000 contributors than before the labor reform and almost a million more than those registered before the pandemic. This increase implies that the workers of foreign origin They contributed 40.4% of the total new affiliations to Social Security. That is, just over four out of every ten new contributors in 2025 were of foreign nationality. Its weight within the whole labor market has also strengthenedand foreigners already represent 14.12% of the total members, six tenths more than in 2024. “The 2025 balance shows that the contribution of foreign people is structural and decisive for employment growth, the sustainability of the pension system and the shared prosperity of our country,” said the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz. in a statement. Venezuelans: the nationality that is growing the most. Within this general increase, the Venezuelan community is the one that concentrates the largest increase in new foreign affiliates in 2025. workers arriving from Venezuela They formalized 40,614 new affiliations compared to those registered in 2024, adding a total of 215,735 Venezuelans. This represents an annual growth of 23.2% and places them as the group that has registered the most new registrations in Social Security in the last year. This jump places Venezuelans in 19.8% of the total new registrations of foreign people, so that almost one in every five new affiliations of immigrants was workers. from Venezuela. The figure consolidates an upward trend that has been observed for almost a decade, but marks a turning point in 2025 by becoming for the first time the nationality that has grown the most in relative terms, placing itself ahead of Colombians who also marked a historical rise. Colombians: more numerous but with less growth. Although Venezuelans have led the increase in new memberships, Colombians remain the largest community in terms of total memberships. At the end of 2025, the system registered around 250,248 Colombian workers, compared to the 212,319 registered in 2024. This represents an increase of 28,929 new members, leaving a growth of 13% compared to last year. Colombians are the largest Latin American nationality in Spain, at least in terms of employment, but they remain behind the 373,000 affiliates from Morocco and the more than 330,000 from Romaniawhich are the most numerous nationalities in terms of affiliation of foreign workers. Key support for the labor market. According to Ministry data, the weight of foreign workers is especially concentrated in sectors where the demand for labor is more intense, such as hospitality (28.8%), agriculture (26%) or construction (23.2%). In these areas, immigrants represent a very relevant part of the workforce and help sustain activity in campaigns and work peaks. At the end of 2025, foreign self-employed workers reached 496,888, marking a historical maximum and growing 6.3% year-on-year. The greatest growth of these new self-employed workers has been registered in the Information and communications sectors (25.9%) and in Energy Supply (22%). In Xataka | It is not a country for Spaniards: Madrid and Catalonia are losing national population while gaining foreign population Image | Unsplash (aboodi vesakaran, Callum Hill)

Bringing fiber to rural Spain does not come cheap. This interactive map tells you exactly how much it cost

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Those of us who live in urban areas take it for granted that we have fiber coverage, but there are many rural areas from Spain where fiber has taken a long time to arrive and even some where they are still waiting for it. To ensure coverage of the entire territory, the government launched subsidies for operators to deploy their network. Now we have a map to know the status of all deployments, interactive and non-profit. The map. It has been developed by Fernando García Álvarez, a software engineer who has contacted us to publicize his creation. It is an independent and non-profit initiative. Its objective was to gather all the information on fiber deployment plans, both the previous PEBA and the current UNICO plans in a single place, something that until now had to be consulted through various sources. His name is Fiber Programs and when we open it we find a heat map of the entire peninsula, with the red areas representing the areas with the greatest coverage and the yellow areas representing the least coverage. Detailed information. To obtain all the information on the different programs you have to zoom in and click on one of them. Here we can see which operator is carrying out the deployment, which plan it belongs to and other more in-depth data such as the total amount of the subsidy and the completion deadline. This is especially useful for those projects that are still underway because it allows you to know when a specific zone will be connected. Subsidies. That in 2026 there will be those who do not have a fiber connection is shocking, but there is a reason why there are still areas without this infrastructure: it is not profitable for operators to bring their infrastructure to an area where there are very few inhabitants. From this need was born the Broadband Extension Program or PEBA. The plan was active from 2013 to 2020 and subsidized almost 800 projects from more than 100 operators. In 2024, the UNICO Broadband plan took over the baton, with more than 18 million euros and with Avatel and Adamo as the main recipients of the aid. Spain and fiber. Although there are some areas left to cover, they are the least. The reality is that 95% of the Spanish territory has access to fiber optics, which places us well ahead of the European average, which is 64%. Our colleagues from Xataka Móvil made a devastating comparison: a town in Soria has better internet than Berlin. Image | Fiber Programs In Xataka | In 2023 Spain tried to create its own “Starlink” to connect the rural world: it has failed miserably

The supermarket sector has been highly contested in Spain for years. Now it is reflected in networks with the super hooligans

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That the supermarket sector is disputed highly disputed In Spain it is nothing new. Especially since Mercadona undertook a unstoppable conquest which has allowed it (thanks to its white brands and prepared dishes) to monopolize almost 30% of the marketat least in terms of value. What is new is that this rivalry between chains is encouraging a phenomenon as curious as chanante in networks: a pulse between ‘hoolingans supermarket’. Same as the ultras who have been going to football stadiums for decades, only in this case the phenomenon is cooked up on networks (X, Instagram or TikTok), through memes and focused on the main store chains. The protagonists here are not Real Madrid, Barça or Atlético, but Mercadona, Lidl, Aldi or Dia. Goodbye Barça, hello Bonpreu Click on the image to go to the tweet. Before getting into the matter, I propose a game. Enter TikTok, type the hashtag #hooligans and take a look at the search results. You will see that there are videos of ‘conventional’ ultras (what anyone would expect to find in a search like this) and others less orthodox that show images of people with balaclavas, scarves, flags and banners that do not read the names of football clubs, but of that store where you buy yogurt and bread. That is, nothing from Real Madrid, Barça, Atlético, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain or any other sports club. What they wave are flags that read Mercadona, Eroski, Aldi or Hipercor. In fact, it is their corporate colors that predominate in the scarves and flares. The phenomenon is so curious that a few days ago the @MariaMayrit account dedicated it an interesting thread in X, where he baptized it as “supermarket ultras.” Click on the image to go to the tweet. Click on the image to go to the tweet. What differentiates them from traditional hooligans? To begin with, the focus of attention It goes from sports to supermarket chains, but that is just one of its peculiarities. Another (fundamental) is that the ‘super ultras’ are a phenomenon that is concentrated on social networks and memesphere. There is no known group of fans of Mercadona, Alcampo, Hipercor or Covirán (to name four chains) that remain in the parking lots of shopping centers to confront each other. Your territory It is another: that of the meme, virality, montages and images generated with artificial intelligence. That does not mean that the phenomenon of ‘super hooligans’ is a curiosity limited to networks, a passing fad fueled by AI. In addition to videos and montages, there are also accounts focused on that content. In the end it is linked to something much more important: the weight that the large chains in the sector retail are acquiring in our daily lives as we homes change. The best example probably Mercadona leaves itwhich no longer aspires only to be the place where we buy food to fill the refrigerator, but rather our reference in general food, the place where they cook for you and you even sit down to eat. The ultras memes confirm something else: the roots that some brands, such as Mercadona, FGadis, HiperDino, Alimerka or Bonpreu, have achieved in certain communities. In fact, the sector itself manages studies that show that the super regionals are supporting the push of the giants of the industry. The reason: their commitment to certain products, but also the value of closeness to identity, precisely what is exploited (with a certain dose of humor) by the memes that circulate these days on the networks about ‘supermarket ultras’. Images | x In Xataka | Mercadona has grown so much in Spain that for the US it is no longer just a supermarket chain: it is a “cultural phenomenon”

In its obsessive effort to be Spain within Spain, Madrid now has a new festival: the April Fair

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It’s been a while since the April Fair It took flight to expand beyond (much beyond) Seville. Today they organize their own fairs with a profusion of flamenco and polka dots in Galicia, Catalonia, Castile and León either Cantabriaas well as in other countries, including other side of the ocean. The reason is very simple. Its mix of dance, gastronomy and culture is popular. So much so, in fact, that in Madrid they have decided to launch your own fair in a big way, with a multi-week event. Its objective is to expand by 200,000 m2 and attract 800,000 visitors. One word: Madrilucía. The name is a declaration of intentions. The objective of Madrilucia is to bring the spirit of the April Fair to the capital. In fact, its organizers they present it as “the first great Andalusian fair in Madrid”, with hundreds of booths, spaces dedicated to fashion, horse parades, gastronomy, music, culture… A little piece of the south spread throughout the capital. The event aspires to take up the witness of the fairs held between 1986 and 1995 at the initiative of Francisco de Paula López and which filled the Puerta de Alcalá or Gran Vía with horses, with carriages like those seen in Seville. López, a Sevillian who emigrated to Madrid in the early 70s, decided to promote a fair in the city to “unite the Andalusians” and overthrow clichés. The initiative even gave rise to a documentary broadcast by Canal Sur, ‘Operation Madrilucía’. One figure: 200,000. The Madrid fair will be organized in the Iberdrola Music (Villaverde, Madrid) and will occupy in total, according to those responsible, more than 200,000 square meters“an ephemeral town” made up of more than 400 booths. The offer is completed with “horses, tapas, concerts and flamenco fashion.” The space will in fact be divided into a “festive” area dedicated to live music, with booths and catering; another cultural one, in which stands dedicated to art, fashion and saddlery will be concentrated; and others focused on equestrian culture, gastronomy, leisure and music. Of course, reserve one of their booths it doesn’t come cheap: the Madrilucía website provides information on options that they range from 55,000 to 59,000 euros (plus VAT) per week, depending on the level of decoration. Go for 800,000. The Madrid fair will not overlap with that of Seville, scheduled for the week from April 21 to 26. Madrilucía will start almost immediately afterwards: on May 9. Those in charge already warn that it will be prolonged 20 days and the objective is to attract some 800,000 people until the first days of June. For now, it already has the support of popular figures, such as the bullfighter Sebastián Castella, who has dedicated a video to promote the event. Heads and tails. Although the organizers point out that they hope that the fair “coexist with the local environment”the neighboring Getafe City Council has already expressed its concern about the noise and overcrowding that the fair may generate. “If for a weekend like the Mad Cool or Regaetton Beach Festival the M45 and streets of the Marconi industrial estate in Villaverde are closed, affecting companies and workers, and access is prevented for residents of Getafe and Villaverde to get to their homes, what will be the device that the Madrid City Council and the Community intend to deploy for a fair that will last 20 days?” they pointed out recently to News for Municipalities from the Executive of Getafe, governed by the PSOE. Why is it important? Because beyond the event, its scope or impact on the environment, Madrilucía confirms the expansion (and popularity) of the April Fair beyond Seville and Andalusia. two years ago in fact we told you how a debate had spread on networks about the appropriate dress code to attend the fair or how virality of the hashtag #papagorda to show people who had overindulged in drinks at the fair led the Audiovisual Council of Andalusia (CAA) to warn of the risks to record without consent. Images |Madrilucia In Xataka | Seville wanted more security on its streets at night. To achieve this, he has recovered an old figure: the night watchman.

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