Mercadona to open 10 new stores in Portugal in 2020

The Spanish supermarket chain is opening its 11th supermarket in Portugal this month, March, on the grounds of the former Aveiro Municipal Slaughterhouse

The Spanish supermarket giants, Mercadona, are expanding in Portugal / Mercadona

Editorial Team

18 March 2020, 17:00

Mercadona marked its entry into Portugal in 2019, with the opening of a dozen stores in the northern part of the country. This year, the Spanish supermarket chain will continue to invest in the expansion of the network in the national market, having announced the launch of 10 more points of sale in Portugal. The next inauguration is scheduled for this month on 24th March 2020, in Aveiro. The supermarket will be located in the area of the old slaughterhouse of the city.

This is the third Mercadona store to open in the region of Aveiro, after the opening of supermarkets located in Ovar and São João da Madeira last year. "This opening is another important step in our expansion project in Portugal, in a city as dynamic as Aveiro,¡ which is in constant renewal, and marks the beginning of another year of success in our country", highlights Inês Santos, Mercadona's director of external relations in the centre and south of Portugal, in a statement.

New smaller spaces

In 2020, the leading supermarket chain in Spain, chaired by Juan Roig Alfonso has already confirmed the opening of another store in Aveiro, along with supermarkets in Trofa, Águeda, Penafiel, Santo Tirso, Ermesinde, Paços de Ferreira and Viana do Castelo.

But all the new Mercadona spaces that will open in Portugal during the coming months will be different from the supermarkets that first that arrived in 2019. One change in the future stores is the decrease in the usable area. The original spaces opened by the brand in the country have an average of 1,900m2 and more than 8,000 items, just like in Spain. As well as the size reduction of the new supermarkets, the number of employees will also reduced from 85 to 60.

On the other hand, the brand has already announced that it will lower the price of items, covering various different areas of the supermarket, such as drinks, food, cleaning products, fruit, fish and meat. "We still don't have a promotions policy, but prices are always low all year round, giving price stability to the consumer", as stated in the Portuguese online newsaper Dinheiro Vivo, by Elena Aldana, the group's external relations director in Portugal. The article also points out that Mercadona "decided to reduce the price to more than 2,000 products".