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Consum was born as a consumer cooperative. In 1975 it began its journey, with the opening of its first establishment in Alaquàs (Valencia). At that time a total of 600 consumer partners came together to bring it to life. Today they already have more than 791 supermarkets between Consum and Charter franchises and have a group of more than 3 million customer members. It is characterized by continued growth until, today, it has become the largest Spanish cooperative by number of members. We spoke with Javier Quiles, director of External Relations at Consum. With him we analyzed the current situation of the food distribution market in our country; in addition to its differential business model that has managed to preserve its Valencian roots. "We manage like a normal business but we distribute like a cooperative" Could you explain to us the business model that Consum follows and the value of shared leadership that occurs in a cooperative? We are a multipurpose cooperative in which we have both consumer and worker members. The property belongs to the partners, especially the workers who are the ones who put up the substantial capital. However, we manage like a .
normal business, but we distribute like a cooperative. At the end of the year, we distribute 75% of the results among all partners. The workers, who in 95% of cases are owners, have the right to cooperative return. This means that, together with the interest on their share capital, a working partner can earn about two or two and a half payments more than an employee. Furthermore, within the cooperative, each person is one vote, and we all count the same, from a worker in the supermarket to a manager. «Consum has not received any purchase offer from any fund» In recent months Phone Number Data there has been a clear tendency for certain funds to acquire supermarket chains to concentrate the business. Do you have proof of this? Indeed we see that there are these movements in the market, that small distribution companies are being acquired. For now, we have not received any purchase offer from any fund since, at first, we believe that it is something very complicated since, to do so, we would have to negotiate with thousands of partners that make up Consum. However, the fact that the chains change hands does not affect competitiveness. Since the cake is what it is and has already been distributed, the competition will remain the same. In fact, we are used to being very competitive because the competition is very high in this sec.
tor; and we have always worked very well in this sense. Right now I don't see a scenario in which there is a total concentration of smaller supermarkets, it is still something far away; so I think we will have to start worrying when the problem is closer to us. Have you received any purchase offers? Yes, it is true that there have been funds that have contacted us, but to offer us financing. However, we have always seen very clearly that this was not the path we wanted to follow. Above all for one reason, because, when you ask for financing from a bank, it is nothing more than a partner that does not get involved in the management, but when you depend on a fund, they do seek to obtain a return and there is participation in the management. Why do you think this situation is occurring in the market currently? Regional distribution chains are profitable and compete very well with others at a national or interregional level; And this, despite the fact that Spain is where there is the most competition from the European Union, at the supermarket level. Here, the operator with the largest market share has around 25%, in Germany it has 60%. I think the funds have realized this and that is why they have decided to sacrifice profitability for security. Surely if they invest in other sectors they will obtain greater profitability, although much more volatile.
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发表于 2023-11-29 18:55:59