Mercadona created an average of 16 jobs per day during 2020, in a year marked by the effort the distribution sector has had to make to adapt to the exceptional nature of the pandemic and continue to serve its customers. The Valencian family group, chaired by Juan Roig, generated 5,000 new jobs during the year and now has a workforce of 95,000 permanent employees. To guarantee the safety of its workers and ensure supply to the entire network of stores, the company activated more than one hundred extraordinary initiatives that have cost 200 million euros.
Even so, Mercadona has managed to increase its net profit by 17%, with earnings of 727 million euros (in 2019 it earned 623 million). According to Roig, the improvement in profitability responds to better management and to having "been capable, despite moments of uncertainty, of overcoming our fears, making brave decisions, and working as a team." "It is in exceptional moments when exceptional people emerge; the personal effort and capacity for improvement of the 95,000 people who make up our workforce are a benchmark and an example for society," highlights the president of Mercadona.
The coronavirus crisis has also allowed the supermarket chain to set a new revenue record: 26,932 million, a figure that includes VAT and represents a growth of 5.5% on a like-for-like basis, that is, without taking into account the incremental effect of new openings. As a novelty, 186 million correspond to sales generated by the first 20 stores that have opened in Portugal. The chain closed 2020 with a network of 1,641 supermarkets ---250 in Catalonia---; during the year it opened 70 ---ten of them in Portugal--- and closed 65 because the premises did not conform to the new model of efficient and sustainable establishment that the company is implementing. Of all its supermarkets, a thousand have already adapted to the new store format, with 152 renovations in the last twelve months.
In total, in 2020 Mercadona made investments of 1,500 million euros, a figure it plans to repeat this year and which will contribute to the process of reactivating the Spanish economy. The objective for the current year is to open 97 new supermarkets (88 in Spain and 9 in Portugal), reform 88 points of sale and implement the new prepared food section in 250 additional stores. A good part of the investment budget will also be allocated to the logistics area and digital transformation.
Apart from generating profits of 727 million, the family group recalls that it has distributed 409 million among its workers as a bonus for objectives and that it has paid taxes for 364 million, 29% more. In parallel, the owner of Mercadona and his wife, Hortensia Herrero, have announced that this 2021, from the dividends they receive from Mercadona, they plan to make a donation of 100 million to initiatives that revert to society in the field of entrepreneurship, training, sport, art and culture. Donations from the couple's personal assets in 2020 were 70 million, that is, they plan to increase the figure by 42%.