Mercadona, Carrefour, Lidl, Aldi and two regional retailers, Semark and Consum, have led the opening of new supermarkets in 2022, the year of the unprecedented rise in food prices. They are the water in a semi-desert of store openings in the mass consumer sector. The six companies have concentrated 70% of the total openings, as recorded in the recent report of the CNMC that analyzes the translation of the reduction in VAT on basic foods to the final customer.
Distribution has put a stop to the rate of commercial growth coinciding with the inflationary spiral of the consumption basket. The number of new supermarkets, counting all formats, increased less in 2022 compared to the previous two years, with openings increasing by 0.7% year-on-year. In 2021, when the pandemic had not yet turned over, openings advanced by 2.2%, while in 2020, in full confinement, they had done so by 1.4%.
The tendency to slow down the pace of openings has also been identified by Asedas, the employer group that groups Mercadona, Dia, Lidl or Condis, in its latest report on local food distribution. According to its data, new plant openings totaled 878 units in 2022, 18% less than a year earlier, but slightly above 2020 (854 stores). This 2023 points in the same direction. Until May, 251 openings have been counted, which, if there are no major changes, would project around 780 at the end of the year, below the last three years.
In this context, it is the distribution giants – Mercadona as the leader in Spain and Carrefour –, the regional ones and the German hard discount Aldi and Lidl that maintain the expansive muscle.
Sources in the sector indicate, however, that the data show a “slight decline” attributable to “conjunctural reasons” and not to market difficulties or certain saturation. During 2021 and 2022, delays in openings caused by covid still dragged on – they add.
The growing leadership of the commercial network of some distributors has not substantially changed the distribution of market share, they point out from the CNMC. Mercadona remains on the podium with 17.3% in 2022, far removed from its immediate competitor, Carrefour, with 9.1%, followed by Dia (8.5%), the Eroski Group (6.4%) and Lidl with 5.3%. It stands out, however, the continuous reduction of Dia’s market share, which has fallen by 1.7% from 2019 to 2022 and is still possible to reduce it further this year after the transfer of 224 stores to Alcampo.
In total, Spain has around 25,200 mass consumer goods stores, with a predominance of medium or large format supermarkets.
