BonÀrea's Aragonese bet

Épila (Aragon)BonÀrea's expansion beyond Catalonia includes a mandatory stop in Aragon. The Guissona-based company (Segarra) has been building a large-scale production and logistics center in the town of Épila, in the province of Zaragoza, since 2019. This center is intended to supply the company's supermarkets beyond the Catalan market.

The new complex is "a key piece" for the company's operational structure and future, according to BonÀrea CEO Ramon Alsina, as it will serve the markets of Aragon, Navarre, La Rioja, Madrid, and Valencia. It is currently "the group's largest investment," he adds, and should allow them to "bring the BonÀrea model to more homes in Spain." So far, the group has invested approximately €223 million and has completed 25% of the planned facilities.

BonÀrea's decision to expand its operations into Aragon was based on Zaragoza's "enviable transport links" on the Iberian Peninsula, according to Alsina. The town of Épila is located about 40 kilometers southwest of the Aragonese capital, and the new industrial complex is right off the A-2, the highway that connects Zaragoza with Guadalajara and Madrid, two provinces where BonÀrea already has 14 stores. The company's trucks departing from the new complex can reach Madrid, Valencia, and the Basque Country in a maximum of three hours. The company has its sights set on markets in these regions for several years, although it has not yet established a presence there. If the trucks departed from Guissona, where the company's main logistics and production center is located, the journey would take more than two hours, complicating product transport.

For the moment, however, the complex supplies 132 of the more than 600 establishments of the Segarrense company throughout the country. The Catalan market still accounts for the bulk of BonÀrea's activity, and Guissona remains the epicenter, but it is expected that, as the rest of the national market gains importance, so too will activity at the Aragonese complex. When the Épila center is finished, it will have to have a production capacity 60% greater than that of the group's current facilities in Guissona.

The expansion into other autonomous communities has gone well for the group. It closed in 2024 with revenues of 2.68 billion of euros, which it expects to increase by 5% this year. Last year's profit was 88 million.

BonÀrea's need to build an industrial center in Aragon stems from the company's chosen logistics model and its production model. On the one hand, the stores are supplied daily. Minimizing the distance between distribution centers and points of sale explains the choice of Épila.

Secondly, BonÀrea is one of the few companies in the sector with complete vertical integration, meaning it produces a large part of the products it sells (in Catalonia, Ametller Origen has a similar model). Having started 66 years ago as a livestock cooperative means that within the group, the primary sector activity and the industrial business have a weight that they don't have in other companies in the distribution sector. Therefore, it needs large industrial complexes to house its distribution plants.

The limits of Guissona

BonÀrea maintains that the Guissona complex, where its headquarters are located and the bulk of its industrial activity is concentrated, has room to grow, but it is limited. Therefore, the 180-hectare site in Épila will be the spearhead of the group's growth. The new complex operates with the system of cross-docking which the group already uses in its other production centers and which serves to classify the boxes in which the products arrive and depart. In fact, all the physical merchandise is transported in the same type of boxes, which are the central element of the group's logistics because they allow for the standardization of the transport of all products.

The complex's nerve center is the automated warehouse, which will have a capacity for 300,000 boxes and is divided into several areas according to the temperature requirements of the products. There is also an operational 15,000-square-meter facility for the processing and packaging of nuts, which will be expanded in 2026, as well as a plant for cleaning the transport boxes, with the capacity to wash 22,500 units per day. In addition, there are repair and maintenance workshops, water reservoirs, a water treatment plant, and a gas station, along with two underground tunnels over three kilometers long that house the electrical, water, and steam installations, and, in the future, the conveyor belts that will move products between factories and warehouses.

In the short term, the construction of a pet food factory and a liquid processing facility is planned for the next two years. This facility will process and package milk, fruit juices, water, wine, and oils, and will eventually include several slaughterhouses, a bakery, a helipad dryer, and other facilities.