Caprabo, the Spanish retailer, has said it plans to open 17 supermarkets and three petrol stations in the month of October alone, the majority of which will be in the Levante region of eastern Spain.
Twelve of the new stores are former Amica outlets, acquired by Caprabo as part of its takeover of the Enaco group earlier this year. All of these, along with two of the petrol stations, are in the Levante. Ciudad Real will get one new store and one service station, both in the city of Valdepenas, while two new outlets will be opened in the Barcelona region, at Cerdanyola del Valles and Rubi.
One new outlet will also open its doors in Majadahonda in the Madrid region, while Tarragona will also get one new outlet, while the other five stores and the remaining service station will be in Barcelona, Tarragona, Ciudad Real and Madrid.
Caprabo said that the openings would take its total number of stores in the Levante region to 39, and its total in Spain to 445. It also has 23 service stations throughout the coutry.
Caprabo's takeover of Enaco was completed in June, and since August the company has been busy converting all the Amica stores to its own fascia. So far, 32 Amica stores have been converted, and the remainder will be changed to Caprabo's own format by the end of the year.
Of the 12 Levante region stores, the company said that five new supermarkets would be opened in the province of Albacete - three in Albacete itself and one each in Hellin and Caudete. In the province of Murcia, three stores will open, one each in Mula, Yecla and Totana, while in the province of Alicante, the group plans to open one new store in Ibi and one new store in Onil. The remaining two stores will be in Xativa and Alqueria de la Condesa, both in Valencia province.
The company said that the new outlets would offer the same range of services as existing Caprabo outlets, such as its customer loyalty card, although the e-commerce platform Capraboacasa, would be introduced progressively. The group said it would also continue with its policy of offering a wide range of locally-produced products at all the new stores.
Caprabo is one the top three Spanish-owned retailers, and is the leading player in Catalonia, the Balearic islands, Madrid, Levante and Navarra. Its sales in 2001 reached €1.6 billion, a 10 per cent increase on the previous year. Sales this year are expected to top €2 billion.