The sales turnover of Portuguese supermarket giant Jerónimo Martins, which manages the Pingo Doce brand, soared 20.6% to a total of €30,606 million, despite a year of falling inflation and belt tightening by Portuguese families.
The food distribution and retail group said that the strong performance was down to a focus on price competitiveness and growth in volume.
The President of Jerónimo Martins, Pedro Soares dos Santos, highlighted that for the very first time the group had exceeded the €30Bn sales turnover mark in a communiqué sent to the Portuguese stock market regulator CMVM.
“This achievement is recognition from consumers of the consistency of focus of the brands in terms of price, a continuous improvement in offer and in the shopping experience.”
“The priority given to sales, clarity of trading policies, hard work from teams, and the exemplary execution of expansion and refurbishment plans by its companies over the past two years has added €10Bn to the consolidated business turnover”, adds the President of Jerónimo Martins.
The company that owns Pingo Doce and Recheio decided to pay a €25 million bonus to staff on the back of the profits in “recognition of the contribution made by operations teams”, a decision also justified by the “significant increases in the cost of living of families.”