Mercadona is the reference supermarket in Spain. More than 1,700 stores, presence in Portugal and financial results that are unrivaled in the distribution sector. Its president, Juan Roig, is once again at the center of the public debate after statements in which he defends that the chain does not raise prices of its own volition. “We never raise prices. We raise them because raw materials go up. And we lower them because raw materials go down,” said Roig. The businessman and lawyer Xavi Abat has responded with an analysis that mixes admiration and skepticism in equal parts.
Abat starts from respect. “From businessman to businessman, I respect you a lot. You are the star, I admire you a lot,” he acknowledges in the video. Mercadona supermarkets, he points out, “work like clockwork.” But that’s where the agreement ends.
Abat’s argument is supported by the data that the chain itself makes public. Mercadona invoices more than 40,000 million euros per year and obtains more than 1,700 million in net profit. “Record profits. Bravo, all my love and admiration,” says Abat. And he continues: “But that means that business is going very well. And if business is going very well, don’t sell me the motorcycle that you upload out of obligation.”
The businessman and lawyer clarifies that he does not question the legality of the model. “Is it illegal to earn that much money? No way.” What he rejects is the narrative. That a company with these margins presents price increases as something inevitable and beyond its control seems, in its own words, to “sell the film.”
Abat goes beyond the cost of raw materials. The final price of a product, he explains, does not depend only on what it costs to produce it. “Business strategy, competition, internal decisions and margins influence.” That is, there is a margin of business decision that Roig’s speech does not mention.
The businessman concedes that Mercadona has indeed reduced the price of some products. “True,” he admits. But it focuses on what the consumer perceives: “The social reality is that our shopping cart is increasingly difficult to fill.” It is the phrase that condenses the entire video. There are no inflation figures behind it, just the experience of someone who fills a basket every week.
“Always critical spirit”
Abat does not call for a boycott of anything. He does not propose changing supermarkets. The closing of the video is a direct appeal to the consumer: “You must always have a critical spirit and don’t sell us the film.” Total respect for Roig as a businessman, but without swallowing the story without analyzing it.
Mercadona closed 2024 with a net profit of 1,760 million euros, according to data published by the company itself. A number that, in the context of the debate about the cost of living, is difficult to ignore when talking about prices and obligations.