SEPI Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales

• A commemorative website shows all the information about half a century of activity by the Company

MERCASA celebrates its 50th anniversary with a main event organized for April 7th, on the same date when the decree for the incorporation of this state-owned enterprise was passed, on April 7th, 1966.

The event takes place at Mercamadrid, and is chaired by the acting Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, Ms. Isabel García Tejerina, with the participation of the Mayor of Madrid, Ms. Manuela Carmena; of SEPI’s Chairman, Mr. Ramón Aguirre; of MERCASA’s Chairman, Mr. Eduardo Ameijide y Montenegro; and of Mercamadrid’s Chairperson, Ms. Marta Higueras.

At the ceremony will take place the presentation of a book which shows MERCASA’s evolution along its 50 year history, as well as its contribution to the modernization and operation of the food chain in Spain; as well as of a video which reflects in images the above evolution.

Photographic exhibit about the anniversary

At Mercamadrid’s main office will be inaugurated also on April 7th a photographic exhibit which shows in more than 150 images MERCASA’s history, as well as that of the Mercas, and the evolution of the commercial activity in Spain in the last 50 years.

All of the above with a common goal and message: Celebrating the Company’s 50th anniversary with the sight set on the future, guaranteeing a long history of positive results in the service which is provided from MERCASA and from the Mercas to the whole chain food, and whose reason of being continues to be as valid and necessary today as it was at the start, always adapted to the conditions current in each moment.

Mercasa, a state-owned Enterprise

MERCASA is a state-owned enterprise belonging to the Central Administration, whose shareholders are the state-owned industrial holding company Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI) and the Ministry for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, through the Fondo Español de Garantía Agraria (FEGA).

The company provides a public service to the whole food chain, and in particular to the wholesaler echelon for fresh food, through the Network of 23 Mercas, which MERCASA has promoted and manages jointly with the respective town halls.

Equally, MERCASA manages its own Network of commercial centers, which is in line with its vocation for providing a public service as a way of contributing to organizing retailer shops in areas which present special needs, or in cases of new urban developments.

Furthermore, the company keeps a growing international activity, with the preparation and development of technical assistance projects for modernizing wholesaler and retail commercial structures, especially in those countries which attempt to reorganize their food system.

The wholesale commercial activity carried out in the Mercas network generates a turnover which in 2015 exceeded 10,600 M€, corresponding to the commercialization of 6.7 Million Tons of food, mostly of a perishable nature (fruit, vegetables, fish and meat). The data for 2015 show an increase of 6% on sales on the previous year.

The wholesale and services commercial activity is carried out by the 3,200 companies which have set up facilities within the Mercas, and which daily care for 75,000 customers (retailers, catering, institutional consumption companies, etc.), with over 100,000 commercial transactions every day.

The sale of fresh food at the Mercas represents, in terms of its share of Spain’s total consumption, about 55% for fruit and vegetables, and about 45% for fish and seafood, and 25% for meat.

MERCASA and Grupo SEPI

MERCASA belongs to Grupo SEPI, a corporate holding which includes a total of 16 state-owned companies in which it has direct, majority shareholding participations, with a workforce of around 73,000 professionals in 2014; the Spanish state-owned television and radio corporation, Corporación Radiotelevisión Española, which is attached to SEPI, and one public foundation. Equally, SEPI has direct minority shareholdings in a further ten companies, and indirect shareholdings in more than one hundred companies.