Calvo Keeps Market Share By Selling To Lidlff

Source: CincoDias

The Spanish cannery Calvo Group was one of the damaged parties when the supermarket chain Mercadona from Valencia, Spain, decided to remove Calvo’s products from its shelves last year. Nevertheless, Calvo has regained lost ground with its entry in another important retailer: the German distribution group Lidl.

With Calvo’s presence on the Lidl shelves, the group has been able to keep its market share between 16 per cent and 18 per cent of the canned tuna products segment. “We have recovered with other chains what we lost with Mercadona, which is also characterized by its low retail prices, which is why we could not do promotions. Now we are much more aggressive” said Manuel Calvo Garcia-Benavides, CEO of Calvo Group.

“We are much more aggressive now, mainly aiming at publicity. We have increased our publicity costs by 10%”, Garcia-Benavides said.

Although he affirms “sales have remained steady so far,” he hopes to close the year with a rise in sales.  â€œThe most suitable is to go step by step and withstand the crisis in Spain” he said.

According to the executive, a way to get out of the crisis would be “for the producers to have more margins, because they are the ones that invest.”

In terms of the start of insolvency proceedings for the Spanish canning company Alfageme (brand Miau), the executive commented: “the Spanish market is very complicated and there are very few companies that beat Calvo.”