Mercadona has chosen two of its suppliers based in Catalonia to manufacture one of the products it expects to sell the most this week: heart-shaped cakes to celebrate Valentine's Day. These are the company Pastifred, with a production center in Montblanc (Tarragona), and Barcelona-based Vira Brands, with a plant in Martorell.
Pastifred has created for Mercadona a frozen heart-shaped cake that stands out for its bright red color and is made with cream and crunchy hazelnut cream. According to the supermarket chain, the company has had to make an investment to adapt its production line to this product, for which it has developed an innovative red mirror-effect coating. On the other hand, to celebrate Valentine's Day, Vira Brands has manufactured a milk chocolate heart for Mercadona.
Both Pastifred and Vira are totaler suppliers to the supermarket chain chaired by Juan Roig. This category encompasses a wide range of companies that specialize in the production of a specific product and that the chain markets under the brands Hacendado, Bosque Verde and Deliplus. The commitment to the totaler model has completely revolutionized Mercadona's supplier strategy, since historically the company had opted to work with a reduced number of suppliers, called inter-suppliers, to whom it entrusted the production of an entire category of products. That is, before, Mercadona had a single manufacturer for all the cookies it sells and now it has several suppliers specialized in each type of cookie.
Mercadona operates with a network of more than 250 supermarkets in Catalonia, where it employs more than 13,500 people. In 2019, it bought products manufactured by Catalan companies worth 3,968 million euros. More than 125 Catalan manufacturers are totaler suppliers to the chain, which has a turnover of more than 25,500 million euros.
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