Spanish Retailers Make Plans in Portugal

The upcoming quarters are going to be interesting for Spanish retailers looking to develop their presence in neighbouring Portugal. In the suburb of Porto, the Portuguese Finance Minister visited Mercadona’s co-innovation centre, which was set up to adapt products to Portuguese consumers ahead of its market entry in 2019. In Lisbon, rival Dia is to invest around EUR 2mn to open a new ca. 1,000 sq m supermarket and darkstore located above, which will be used as a base for the launch of the retailer’s online operation. Planned for 2018, the service should eventually cover the whole of Lisbon city. 

Meanwhile, in the north of Portugal, Froiz supermarkets is now considering a major jump forward for its expansion, with two new units in the pipeline for 2018, HiperSuper newspaper reports. Despite operating for two decades in the country, Froiz has just 13 supermarkets in Portugal, LZ Retailytics data shows. This comes in stark contrast with Spanish cooperative Covirán which announced its intention to pass the 400 store milestone in 2018, eight years after its market entry.