In New York, the young journalist Andy Sachs has just started working as an assistant to the feared editor-in-chief of the fashion magazine Runway. She spends the day running through the corridors writing down her orders in a black notebook. In Paris, Amélie Poulain also carries one in her hands. She is a waitress from Montmartre who is trying to find Dominique Bredoteau, the owner of a box of memories that she discovered hidden in her home. She has located three men with that name in the phone book and has written down their addresses to start ruling them out.They are two scenes from different movies –The Devil Wears Prada and Amélie–, but they share the same object: a Moleskine. It is a notebook with black covers, rounded corners, and an elastic band that, since the turn of the millennium, has become a design icon and the flagship product of a brand with a presence all over the world. In 2025 the company had a turnover of 117.8 million euros and during the first half of 2026, sales grew by 2.2%, to 52.2 million. But where did these notebooks come from? And how did Moleskine manage to turn such a simple object into a brand known all over the world?Bruce Chatwin's notebook

The story begins almost 40 years ago. For a long time, the British writer and traveler Bruce Chatwin had used small black notebooks that he bought at a stationery store on the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, in Paris. They were simple notebooks, handcrafted by a small family business in Tours, in central France, that Chatwin took on his travels to take notes, draw maps, and jot down everything that could later end up becoming material for his books. In France, that type of notebook was known as moleskine, because of the black, waxed material used to cover its cover.In 1986, however, the manufacturer closed. When Chatwin returned to the Parisian stationery store to buy more, the owner told him that the notebooks were no longer being made. Before leaving for Australia to live a new adventure, the writer tried to collect all that they had in the back room. He ended up explaining the episode in The songlines, the book about that trip which he published the following year.Almost a decade later, the book fell into the hands of Maria Sebregondi, a designer who worked for Modo & Modo, a small Milanese company. In the mid-nineties, the company was looking for a product that could connect with a new generation of readers, travelers, and creatives. Sebregondi was reading The songlines when she stumbled upon the story of the lost notebooks.Sebregondi proposed to the company to reproduce that small black notebook, preserve its most recognizable features and convert the generic name with which the writer had described it into a brand. In 1997 Modo & Modo put the first 5,000 Moleskine notebooks on sale.From notebook to global brand

Success, however, did not depend solely on the design. Modo & Modo decided to sell the Moleskines mainly in bookstores and design shops, instead of treating them as a simple stationery item, and incorporated into the product the story that had inspired it.The formula worked: by 1999 it could already be bought throughout Europe, in the United States and in Japan and, over the years, the company expanded its catalog with planners, writing instruments, bags and other accessories. The appearance of laptops and, later, smartphones did not slow down its expansion. On the contrary, the notebooks generated communities of enthusiasts on the internet who shared photographs of their notebooks and contributed to turning them into a cult object.The growth ended up attracting investors. In 2006, Modo & Modo was acquired by a group led by the fund Syntegra Capital and the company definitively adopted the name Moleskine. In 2013, it went public on the Milan Stock Exchange, but its time as a listed company was short: in 2016, the Belgian group D’Ieteren acquired control of it and the following year withdrew it from the stock exchange. Almost three decades after those first 5,000 notebooks, Moleskine remains part of the Belgian group and has turned the small notebook that Bruce Chatwin missed into a business that generates more than one hundred million euros annually.

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An eraser, a ruler, a pair of pens. Also two highlighters, a pencil sharpener and, of course, a few pencils. This week, with the return to classrooms, pencil cases have been filled again with school supplies. And on the back of many pencils –especially those that students will use for the most artistic subjects– there will be stamped the same name: Faber-Castell. They are the two surnames of a German dynasty that has been manufacturing them for more than 260 years.

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In Argentona, near the road to Mataró, drivers pass by a large industrial building every day. From one of the side walls hangs a red circle-framed logo: it is the logo of Velcro, the brand that invented and patented the famous fastening and fastening system. In Maresme, the company has its European headquarters and is a true industrial giant in the region: in 2024, Velcro Europe had a turnover of 67.3 million euros, making it the textile company with the highest turnover in the region and the eighth in the sector in the entire province of Barcelona.

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Stroll to the shady corner of the Ermità fountain, in the Serra de Collserola Natural Park; cross the Santa Fe beech forest to the Empedrat de Morou, in the Montseny Natural Park; or climb, skirting lakes, towards the Pica d’Estats, in the Alt Pirineu Natural Park. Catalonia's natural spaces offer excursions for all tastes and levels. However, a three-kilometer walk in Collserola and a demanding ascent in the Pyrenees have more in common than it seems: for the experience to be complete, both excursions begin long before lacing up your boots.Planning an outing is essential to enjoy it to the fullest. Knowing whether to book parking, check the weather conditions, choose a route suitable for the group's experience, or be aware of the regulations of a particularly vulnerable area makes all the difference. To facilitate this preparation, the Generalitat de Catalunya, with the support of the four provincial councils, has the espaisnaturals.cat portal, a website that gathers official information about the natural spaces of Catalonia. The space allows you to discover places, consult itineraries and routes, prepare your visit, and access recommendations on access, available activities, and the natural and cultural heritage of each area. It also helps you find out if there are temporary restrictions or if you need to make a reservation before arriving.The charm of a good route

Official itineraries are precisely one of the best entry points to the territory. In addition to offering routes adapted to different levels, they allow you to discover the points of interest of each space and advance with greater safety, while avoiding passage through sensitive habitats, private properties or areas where agricultural and livestock activities are carried out. Preparing yourself, following the indicated path and adapting the visit to each place are three simple gestures that benefit both the hiker and the environment.The cards for each route allow you to consult its distance, elevation gain, difficulty, starting point, and main attractions. This is particularly useful data when appearances can be deceiving. The walk to the Ermità fountain, for example, is less than three kilometers long and is suitable for a leisurely outing. The Empedrat de Morou itinerary is just over six kilometers long and takes you through the forests of the Santa Fe valley. The ascent to Pica d'Estats, on the other hand, exceeds eighteen kilometers and accumulates more than 1,600 meters of positive elevation gain: it is a high mountain route that requires experience and careful preparation.Consulting this information before leaving helps to calculate the necessary time, check if the route is suitable for the whole group, and prepare essential material. It also allows us to anticipate the places we will find: a fountain hidden among the vegetation, an old hermitage, a granite balcony, or the ponds that guard the path to the summit.

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On July 25, 1970, on page 17 of The New York Times, a brief obituary announced the death of Jesse Shwayder, founder of Samsonite. The text explained that Shwayder had died at his home in Denver at the age of 88, after having turned a small company of travel trunks into one of the world's leading manufacturers of suitcases, backpacks, and accessories: Samsonite.The note also stopped at a detail: before founding the suitcase company, Shwayder had started working selling newspapers and delivering orders for the family grocery store. That summer day, the boy who had carried news through the streets of Denver had ended up starring in one, discreetly, in one of the world's most important newspapers. But how did Shwayder manage to build an empire that, in 2025 alone, billed close to 3 billion euros?Newspapers, groceries and suitcases

Jesse Shwayder was born in 1882 in Black Hawk, Colorado, into a Jewish family of Polish origin who soon moved to live in Denver. As a child, he began working selling newspapers and delivering orders from his father's grocery store. After going through the family business and working as a salesman for a luggage manufacturer, in 1903 he opened his own suitcase store. Seven years later, at 28 years old and with savings of $3,500, he founded the Shwayder Trunk Manufacturing Company, the company that decades later was renamed Samsonite.In 1910, Shwayder started his own trunk factory in a small back room in downtown Denver. The business began with few workers and a very clear idea: not to compete with cheap luggage brands, but to manufacture robust, well-finished pieces designed to last for years and years. At that time, traveling was still a privilege and suitcases had to be able to withstand the onslaught of long journeys made by train or ship. Shwayder understood that the best way to make his mark in that market was to be able to explain to the customer that, if they bought one of his trunks, they could bet their bottom dollar it would withstand all the bumps of the journey.But it wasn't enough to make durable luggage: people had to believe in it. Shwayder found a very graphic way to do so: in one of the company's first campaigns, he, his father, and his brothers appeared standing on a plank supported only by one of their trunks. The message couldn't have been clearer: if that piece could hold the weight of an entire family, it could also withstand the bumps of a journey.The name Samsonite

Over the years, the business grew and several Shwayder brothers joined. The company left behind the small initial shop and began to manufacture on a large scale. For decades, the company remained linked to the Shwayder surname, until in 1939 it introduced a new line of luggage with a name inspired by Samson, the biblical character associated with extraordinary strength. The idea fit perfectly with the narrative the company had built from day one. That suitcase ended up giving its name to the entire company.But the world of travel changed. Large wooden trunks, designed for long journeys, began to fall behind in a society that moved faster and with less luggage. Samsonite responded with lighter, more practical, and modern suitcases: the Streamlite in 1941, the Silhouette in 1958, and in 1963, the Classic Attaché, a briefcase designed for a new generation of executives.In 1969, it opted for polypropylene to manufacture lighter suitcases; in 1974, it incorporated wheels into the Silhouette collection, an innovation that seems elementary today but forever transformed the experience of carrying luggage; and, in the 21st century, it popularized four-wheeled suitcases, ultralight materials, and more sustainable collections made from recycled plastic. More than a century after that Denver backroom, Samsonite is no longer just a suitcase brand: it is a global group that also controls brands like Tumi and American Tourister, selling backpacks, bags, and accessories.

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New public housing developments and greener, more accessible streets designed for pedestrians. Also, facilities that recover heritage and reconnect neighborhoods. Around the Llobregat and Besòs rivers, riparian areas that are being renaturalized to gain biodiversity and resilience. These are some of the actions with which the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) is shaping the metropolis of the future: a network of projects that not only build or renovate, but also adapt the territory to an increasingly demanding urban context.

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Let's place ourselves in the center of São Paulo, in Brazil, in mid-1962. Driving there is not easy: buses, taxis, motorcycles, and fuscas –as Brazilians call the Volkswagen beetles– fill the streets. On the sidewalks of the mythical Viaduto do Chá, Praça da Sé, and São João Avenue, pedestrians weave their way between offices, shop windows, banks, cinemas, and cafes. The city is bustling. It grows upwards, with ever taller buildings, and also outwards, with new neighborhoods that spread at the increasingly frenetic pace of factories, which constantly seek labor.One of these companies is Alpargatas. Its roots come from afar: from a sandal business that the Basque Juan Echegaray and the Scotsman Robert Fraser had launched in Argentina at the end of the 19th century. In 1907, that factory of popular and affordable footwear landed in Brazil with the creation of Sao Paulo Alpargatas. For decades, espadrilles, canvas shoes, and other products designed to shoe the working class of a growing country came out of its factories.In 1962, however, the company began to produce a new model. It was not a sandal; nor was it a closed shoe. It was a rubber sandal, with a white sole and blue straps, inspired by Japanese zori and adapted to a hot, immense, and unequal country. It was cheap, resistant, and easy to mass-produce. It did not aim to be aesthetic: above all, it aimed to be comfortable for walking. Today, more than six decades later, that product continues on the market under a brand that is already part of the global summer imaginary: Havaianas. In 2025, the brand generated approximately 741 million euros and concentrated almost all of Alpargatas' business. The company sold 228.7 million pairs in one year, of which more than 23 million were in international markets, such as Catalonia. What was born as a simple flip-flop for daily Brazilian life is today a brand present in more than one hundred countries. But how did it come to conquer the summer for so many people?A flip-flop for the popular classes

The idea of Alpargatas worked right away. In less than a year, the company was already producing more than 13,000 pairs of Havaianas a day. The product fit the moment: it was cheap, it withstood the heat, and it could be sold everywhere. The flip-flops began to circulate in neighborhood markets, in the streets of big cities, and in the villages of the interior of the country.Distribution also helped to make them a ubiquitous object. In the mid-sixties, street vendors roamed Brazil in Volkswagen Kombi vans loaded with pairs of Havaianas. They reached neighborhoods and municipalities where specialized stores were far away, making that rubber sandal easy to find and even easier to buy.For years, Havaianas were just that: popular, practical, and unpretentious footwear. They were worn by workers, families, children, and the elderly. They were used for going to the market, for staying at home, for walking on the street, or for stepping on the sand. They were not a fashion symbol, but quite the opposite: a product so everyday that it seemed to have no brand.Beans, rice… and Havanaias

In the eighties, Havaianas were already everywhere. The Brazilian government even included them among essential products, alongside basic goods like rice and beans, in policies to control inflation. But the massive success also had a downside: for decades, they were seen as cheap footwear for the popular classes, to the point that they were called chinelo de pobre

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In one of the industrial estates of Essen, in northern Germany, there is a street named Max Keith. It is the way the city has found to remember the man who, in the midst of World War II, had to solve an unexpected problem: German Coca-Cola factories could no longer make Coca-Cola. The trade blockade had cut off the arrival of the concentrate that the company sent from the United States and without that secret syrup, the plants could not operate. Keith, who managed the multinational's German subsidiary, had to find a way to get by.

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In 1881, La Vila Joiosa was a quiet, seafaring, and agricultural town on the Alicante coast: nearly 5,000 people lived there, and tourism had not yet transformed the area. But among the low houses, the fields, and the port's activity, there was an industry that was beginning to make itself known. It was that of chocolate. The bars that came out of it had very little in common with those that fill supermarket shelves today: it was homemade workshop chocolate, made in the back of houses, with grinding stones, rolling pins, small stoves, and the help of the whole family. Many chocolatiers combined that trade with farm work and sold the product by order or on trade routes that soon began to extend towards the southeastern peninsula and La Mancha. By the mid-19th century, the townspeople had discovered that chocolate could provide them with very interesting complementary income.One of these neighbors was Valeriano López Lloret. In 1881, he had also decided to set up his own workshop. He had named it Xocolates Valor. Today, more than 140 years later, that small family business has become one of the major Spanish brands in the sector: it has a turnover of over 220 million euros, exports to some sixty countries and is one of the benchmarks in the dark chocolate segment. But how did Valeriano López Lloret and his descendants manage to lead it to the 21st century?From the stone to the mill and the cart

At the end of the 19th century, Valeriano López Lloret started with a small, family-run, artisanal structure, in a context where chocolate was still produced on stone. With the succession of his son, Vicente López Soler, the business began to change scale: the mechanical mill gradually replaced the grinding stone and, later, the systems moved by animal traction gave way to diesel engines. That mechanization allowed for greater production and a finer, more regular chocolate.The change was also noticeable in distribution. The López family's chocolate no longer stayed only near Vila Joiosa: it reached towns in Cuenca and Toledo, such as El Pedernoso, Belmonte, Osa de la Vega, or Quintanar de la Orden. First it came by cart; then, with a Chevrolet van capable of carrying about 1,500 kilos. The business continued to be family-run, but it was beginning to resemble a small factory more than a domestic workshop.Electricity finally pushed this leap forward. In 1935, Valor already employed several workers, but the Civil War and the post-war period slowed the sector down: factories were subjected to production caps, raw material shortages, and government controls. Nevertheless, chocolate continued to gain weight in the local economy: according to the study The chocolate industry in Villajoyosa, in 1948 there were more than twenty companies linked to chocolate production, while other traditional industries, such as rope making, lost prominence.The assault on supermarkets

In the sixties, Valor made its first major industrial leap. It rented a plant in Torre del Pla and, shortly after, opened a new factory in Villajoyosa, where in 1964 it moved the machinery it had in its first premises. The new plant allowed it to produce more, modernize, and expand its range. It was also then that it began to differentiate itself by cocoa: at the end of the sixties, it launched Chocolate Puro, made without vegetable fats as a substitute for cocoa butter. With mass distribution gaining ground, Valor expanded its management team, created a network of representatives, and began to compete for a place on supermarket shelves.In the eighties and nineties, Valor began to go beyond tiles: it sold chocolates, opened its first chocolate shop, took its first steps in exporting, and in 1995, inaugurated a 22,000 square meter expansion to directly process cocoa beans. From the 2000s onwards, the big change was in the narrative: it modernized the logo, packaging, and advertising. With campaigns like Puro placer or Placer adulto, the brand tried to detach chocolate from children's consumption and present it as a more adult, intense, and everyday pleasure. It was a way of bringing a century-old brand into a market that no longer just bought chocolate for snacks, but also for gifts, for cooking, for self-care, or simply to treat oneself to a moment of pleasure.

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In supermarkets, the gluten-free products section is becoming easier to find. Among pasta packages, sliced bread, cookies, flours, pizza bases, and muffins, one color often dominates: the intense yellow of Schär packaging. The image contrasts with the reality of just a few decades ago, when following a gluten-free diet meant navigating pharmacies, health food stores, specialty shops, and homemade recipes based on rice, corn, or potato. Before these products occupied entire shelves, celiac people had to fend for themselves in a market with very little supply.

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On Barcelona's Rambla, a little further down from the Canaletes fountain, there's a scent. It's the same smell that wafts through Pelai street, near Plaça Universitat; close to Casa Batlló, and inside the Diagonal Mar shopping center. It's a sweet, toasted, and slightly spicy aroma, capable of whetting some pedestrians' appetites, but also making others wrinkle their noses. Where does it come from? You just need to sweep your gaze across the landscape to find the answer: it escapes from the establishments that the North American fast-food chain Subway has spread throughout the city. In Catalonia, it only has twelve: all in Barcelona except for one in Lloret de Mar. However, worldwide, the company accumulates staggering figures: around 40,000 restaurants in over 100 countries, making it one of the major restaurant franchises.For almost six decades, Subway was a business controlled by the families of its two founders, Fred DeLuca and Peter Buck. But in 2023, the chain passed into the hands of the North American fund Roark Capital, specializing in restaurant franchises. Subway had grown so much that, in some markets, its own model was beginning to show signs of exhaustion: locations too close to each other, tensions with franchisees, and increasingly strong competition from newer, smaller chains with a more current image. The brand, which had surpassed McDonald's in number of restaurants, needed to become desirable again. Subway has placed the Iberian market in the hands of Grupo Vierci with the aim of opening around 400 restaurants in Spain in the next ten years.But who were Fred DeLuca and Peter Buck? How did they manage to build a chain with tens of thousands of restaurants around the world? To find the answer, we need to travel back to the summer of 1965, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, United States. A doctor and a nuclear physicist

Fred DeLuca had just graduated from high school and had a clear goal: to study medicine. The problem was that he didn't have the money to pay for university. He worked in a hardware store, where he earned $1.25 an hour, but that salary wasn't enough to pay for his degree. A little discouraged, he decided to ask for advice from Peter Buck, an old family friend. Buck was a doctor in nuclear physics.The answer he gave him was unexpected: he proposed opening a submarine sandwich shop, a type of long sandwich very popular in the northeastern United States. Buck gave him $1,000 and became his partner. The first location opened that same August in Bridgeport, under the name Pete's Super Submarines, a tribute to the lender and the sandwiches they sold. The adventure, at first, did not seem destined to make history: it was a small business, thought especially so that DeLuca could pay his tuition.But the young man learned quickly. He understood that, in that sector, it wasn't enough to just make sandwiches: you had to choose good locations, keep costs low, offer a consistent product, and serve it quickly. He also discovered the value of an idea that would eventually define the brand: letting the customer see the ingredients and choose how they wanted their sandwich. In a market dominated by hamburgers, fried chicken, and fixed menus, that counter full of breads, cheeses, vegetables, and sauces was a new concept. A franchise too big

DeLuca and Buck's initial plan was to open 32 restaurants in ten years. By the mid-seventies, however, they had only launched sixteen, all in Connecticut. To grow faster, they turned to franchising, a formula they had previously seen as something reserved for large companies. Starting in 1974, Subway began to multiply with new franchisees. Over the following decades, the chain grew rapidly, with the promise of offering a fresher, more customizable alternative to traditional fast food. For a time, it even surpassed McDonald's in the number of restaurants. But the same model that had made it a giant also ended up creating problems for them. After DeLuca's death in 2015 and Buck's in 2021, Subway remained in the hands of the founding families until, in 2023, Roark Capital took control to relaunch the brand.

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At El Prat airport, just before boarding the plane, Revolut is everywhere. The logo of this bank appears in vinyls on the boarding bridges, in flashing advertisements in the terminal corridors, and also on ATMs that allow you to get one of their cards in a few minutes. The promise is simple: pay with different currencies in any country and reduce the commissions that have traditionally accompanied travel. The same scene is repeated on the other side of the journey. In cities like Budapest, Lisbon, Paris, Milan or Amsterdam, it is increasingly common for someone, between coffees, taxis, dinners, and transport tickets, to take out their mobile, open the app, and pay with Revolut's virtual card.Neobanks are on the rise. They are entities born on mobile that have taken advantage of the fatigue with traditional banking, the expansion of digital payments, and the normalization of traveling without cash. Revolut is today one of its great exponents. In 2025, it closed with 68.3 million individual clients, 30% more than the previous year, and a turnover of 5.2 billion euros. Now, the company no longer wants to be just the card that many activate when they go on a trip, but the main bank for its users. In this offensive, Barcelona plays a prominent role: after opening its technology hub for Southwest Europe, Revolut will inaugurate the first physical store in the world there. It is an almost paradoxical move for a company that has grown by promising that its bank would fit inside a mobile phone.But where does Revolut come from? Who is behind this branchless bank that has managed to sneak into the pockets of millions of people? The answer can be found in London in 2015.The drama of commissions

The story begins in the British capital eleven years ago. The protagonist is Nik Storonsky, a former trader with Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse used to moving between currencies, markets, and airports. Like many other travelers, Storonsky had suffered the drama of commissions: returning from a trip and discovering that the bank had charged him more than he expected for paying, withdrawing money, or exchanging currencies. Moving money around the world continued to be slow, expensive, and not very transparent. That's why he imagined a multi-currency card that would allow spending and transferring money abroad with less friction than traditional banking. Vlad Yatsenko, a computer engineer with experience in large investment banks, soon joined the project. Today, Revolut is one of the most valuable technology companies in Europe.The official launch of Revolut took place in July 2015. The initial proposal was very specific: an application and a card designed to spend money abroad with competitive exchange rates and without the small print that had often accompanied traditional banking. It was very well received. In fact, by 2016, Revolut had already reached 300,000 customers and had raised 15 million dollars in a funding round. It was still a young fintech, but it had already found a market niche.From here, Revolut accelerated. In 2017 it launched Revolut Business, the premium plan and the first cryptocurrency operations; in 2018 it obtained the banking license from the Bank of Lithuania and raised 250 million dollars; and in 2019 it already had 7.8 million customers and began to expand outside of Europe, entering Australia and Singapore. The pandemic further pushed digitization: in 2020 it surpassed 11 million customers, raised 580 million dollars, and landed in the United States and Japan. In just five years, the card against travel fees had already begun to resemble a global bank.In 2021, Revolut raised 800 million dollars in a new round and launched services linked to travel and expense management. In 2022, it already surpassed 26 million individual customers; in 2023, it entered Brazil and New Zealand and began offering local IBANs in markets like Spain. In 2024, it reached 52.5 million users and was valued at 45 billion dollars. In 2025, coinciding with its tenth anniversary, it made another leap: it reached 68.3 million individual customers, opened its first own ATMs in Spain, and received a valuation of 75 billion dollars. Today, the fintech that was born to avoid travel commissions is starting to play in the league of big global banks.

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In Västerås, an old industrial city located on the shores of Lake Mälaren, about a hundred kilometers from Stockholm, winters are long. The cold clings to the streets, the sky darkens early, and the lake's water further accentuates the feeling of living in a gray environment. At first glance, this corner of central Sweden has very little in common with cities like Paris, Milan, or London. However, against all odds, it also occupies its own place on the world fashion map: it is the birthplace of H&M, a giant with 4,100 stores, a presence in 81 countries, and around 132,000 employees, which in 2025 had a turnover of approximately 20 billion euros.But where did H&M come from? To begin with, it's necessary to clarify what these two letters hide. They are the abbreviation for Hennes & Mauritz. Hennes was the name of the first store that Erling Persson opened in 1947 in Västerås, dedicated only to women's clothing; Mauritz comes from Mauritz Widforss, the establishment selling hunting and fishing articles that the founder bought years later in Stockholm and which opened the door for him to also sell men's clothing. Behind the business is the Persson family, one of Sweden's great business dynasties. Erling was the founder; his son Stefan led the group's great international expansion, and his grandson, Karl-Johan Persson, has also held top responsibility positions.The journey that changed everything

Before dressing millions of people, Erling Persson had sold almost everything. The son of a gourmet products merchant from Västerås, he soon left his studies and moved to Stockholm with two hundred crowns in his pocket. With a friend, Björn Wennberg, he started by selling office supplies and, later, Christmas decorations. Fashion was not yet part of his horizon. In fact, what attracted him was something else: the gears of commerce, the way of buying, displaying, selling, and starting again.The turning point came in 1946, during a car trip through the United States. Persson discovered a way of selling there that was not yet common in post-war Europe: establishments with large volumes of product, low prices, and constant turnover. That model impressed him enough to import its logic to Sweden. A year later, he opened his first women's clothing store in Västerås. It was called Hennes and started from a key idea: fashion could also be affordable.The idea worked. Five years after opening the first store in Västerås, Persson opened another one in the center of Stockholm. Little by little, Hennes began to grow within Sweden and project itself beyond its natural market. In 1964, it made its first international leap, with the opening of a store in Norway. But the most symbolic change would arrive a few years later, with a purchase apparently little related to fashion.In 1968, Persson acquired Mauritz Widforss, a Stockholm store specializing in hunting and fishing articles. The move allowed him to gain a commercial presence in the Swedish capital, but it also had an unexpected consequence: the operation included a stock of men's clothing. Persson took advantage of it, and Hennes began to also sell items for men. With that expansion, the brand left its original name behind and became Hennes & Mauritz. In 1974, it went public on the Stockholm stock exchange and, two years later, opened its first store outside Scandinavia, in London.A model designed to scale

From here, H&M turned Persson's initial intuition into a model designed to grow: affordable prices, large volumes, well-located stores, and an offering capable of rapid renewal. The company did not want to compete with haute couture, but rather to bring the language of fashion closer to the general public. Distribution, more than design, became the heart of the business.Over the years, the group accelerated its international expansion, entered the United States, and diversified with brands such as COS, Monki, Weekday, Other Stories, Arket, or H&M Home. It also turned collaborations with designers into a global marketing resource. Today, H&M remains one of the world's giants in the sector, but it competes in a market increasingly pressured by Inditex, Shein, and new consumer habits.

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The landscape surrounding Alcantarilla is arid and wide, until it meets the Murcian mountains. Along the way, highways, roundabouts, plots of land to be urbanized, and a few industrial warehouses are scattered. In this municipality, next to the city of Murcia, the 44,000 inhabitants coexist with a mosaic formed by the orchard, industry, and logistics. In the San Andrés business park, a huge red warehouse owned by PepsiCo attracts all eyes. What is this American giant doing in this corner of the Murcian orchard? It transforms tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers into the gazpacho of one of its brands: Alvalle.

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You enter a supermarket. First, you head to the candy aisle. On the shelves, there are bags of M&M's, the mythical chocolate pearls coated in colors; Snickers bars, made with peanuts and caramel; Twix, with crunchy cookies; Mars, fluffier and sweeter, and Maltesers, chocolate-covered balls. Now you turn towards the pet product area. The route continues with Pedigree cans for dogs and Whiskas for cats, bags of Catsan litter, and Royal Canin kibble. And when you're about to pay, next to the checkout, rows of little boxes of Orbit gum still catch your eye.At first glance, it might seem like a random assortment of brands you can find at the supermarket, but they all share the same owner. They are owned by Mars, one of the largest family-owned companies in the world: in 2024, it had a turnover of approximately 47 billion euros, according to its annual sustainability report. The figure coexists with another striking piece of data: Forbes placed the Mars family's fortune at around 117 billion dollars in 2024, just behind the Waltons, the heirs of Walmart, among the richest dynasties in the United States. But who are the Mars family and how did they found this empire?The origin: a Washington kitchen

The story begins in 1911 in a kitchen in Tacoma, Washington state. It was there that young Frank C. Mars began to manufacture and sell wholesale butter cream candies. As a child, his mother had taught him to hand-dip chocolates, and little by little, he had been perfecting the technique. The project, however, didn't last long, as local competition and difficulties in increasing production ended up stifling it.The leap came a few years later. In 1920, Frank C. Mars moved to Minneapolis and launched a new candy business, the Mar-O-Bar Company. There he began experimenting with more resistant chocolate bars and fillings, designed to better withstand transport and reach more customers. The first attempt, the Mar-O-Bar, did not quite work out: it was too delicate a product and did not withstand travel well. However, that failure made him realize that to grow, he didn't need a product that was simply good: it also had to be easy to manufacture, package, and distribute.In 1923 he stumbled upon what he was looking for: the Milky Way. The idea arose after a conversation between Frank and his son Forrest. It occurred to them to convert the taste of a malted milk shake, very popular in the United States at the time, into a chocolate bar that could be eaten with one's hands. The result was an immediate success. That bar not only boosted sales, but also changed the scale of the business. Mars went from being a candy maker with few aspirations to a company capable of hiring salespeople, expanding production, and starting to think about expanding.From Snickers to M&M's

The expansion gained momentum in the late twenties. In 1929, Mars moved to Chicago, a better-connected city with greater logistical capacity, and opened a production plant there. That same year, Forrest E. Mars, Frank's only son, officially joined the family business. Shortly after, in 1930, the company launched Snickers, which would eventually become one of its great global icons. In 1932, Forrest moved to the United Kingdom, from where he boosted the group's international expansion and consolidated the idea that would shape Mars' culture for decades: growing the company by thinking not only about the product but also about the relationship with employees, suppliers, and consumers.The new great leap arrived with M&M’s. In 1940, Forrest E. Mars returned to the United States and founded M&M Limited in New Jersey. A year later, the first M&M’s were produced for the U.S. Army, conceived as a sweet that was easy to transport and more resistant than conventional chocolate. In 1945, after World War II, the brand reached the general public. From then on, Mars was no longer just a bar company: it added new candy brands, entered the pet food business with products like Chappie, Whiskas, or Pedigree, and opened the door to other categories, such as rice. Today, Mars remains in the hands of the founding family.

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A pacifier has been left half-hidden among the crib sheets. On top of the chest of drawers, a baby bottle rests. A little further on, in a corner of the room, the brightly colored wheeled walker, which the baby will soon use to take its first steps, is parked. You have to look closely, but everything has the same logo: that of the Chicco brand. Behind these mythical white letters on a blue background, with the red dot above the i, there is not only a brand of baby products, but also an Italian giant in childcare and children's consumption. It is called Artsana, it was founded in 1946 in the Italian city of Como and today it groups brands such as Chicco, Boppy, Neo Baby, Prénatal, Toys Center or Bimbo Store. In 2024, the group had a turnover of nearly 600 million euros, not including the Prénatal area.

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You grab your phone and open TikTok. An influencer points a yogurt at the camera and says it looks healthy, but it's actually an industry trick. A content creator claims intermittent fasting has changed their life. Another thirty-second video makes gluten the big enemy to defeat. You've just watched them, you close the app, sit down at your computer, and open an artificial intelligence tool to prepare a personalized diet for you. We've never received so many messages about what to eat, what to avoid, and how to do it. But, amidst this avalanche of information, distinguishing scientific evidence from digital noise has become an increasingly complex task.This situation is not anecdotal. An analysis by Dublin City University and MyFitnessPal of over 67,000 TikTok videos concluded that only 2.1% of nutrition content adhered to public health and nutrition guidelines. It is in this context that undergraduate and postgraduate nutrition training is being advocated for, mainly within healthcare professions. If the foundation for practice is a degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics, master's degrees allow for deeper exploration into increasingly complex areas, such as personalized nutrition, sports nutrition, public health, or food and planetary health. In Catalonia, public universities offer various possibilities in these fields.The challenge of myths and screens

In the consultations of dietitians-nutritionists, the impact of social networks and AI has been detected for some time. “I perceive a society with more nutritional information, but also more confusion, where patients tend to react in a polarized way: either they adopt extreme diets, or they are blocked from any change”, summarizes Mar Gassó, dietitian-nutritionist at the BCN Diabetes & Endocrine Institute (IBADE). As she explains, in recent years these habits have even “rradicalized”, and there are people who restrict food groups or are less afraid of miracle diets. 

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Strengthen the connection between disciplines, bring students closer to clinical practice from day one, and articulate health training in the same environment. These are the objectives of UIC Barcelona with UIC BCN Health, the umbrella under which it groups seven disciplines in the biosanitary field. These are Bioengineering, Biomedical Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, Psychology, Dentistry, and Physiotherapy.This ecosystem unfolds on the Sant Cugat campus, integrated into the General University Hospital of Catalonia. There, health studies coexist with three own university clinics, a reference hospital network, and the Advanced Simulation Integral Centre, a space of more than 1,000 square meters that allows students to carry out simulated practices in a real clinical environment from the beginning of their training.More practical experience

The university argues that this model seeks to combine academic learning with guided and safe practical experience, always with the accompaniment of active professionals. Furthermore, UIC BCN Health also concentrates research laboratories in Biomedicine and Bioengineering, gyms for Physiotherapy and healthcare facilities such as the University Dental Clinic, the Support psychology and psychiatry clinic, and Cuides UIC Barcelona, focused on the care of advanced diseases and palliative care.The rector of the university, Alfonso Méndiz, maintains that UIC BCN Health is a “differentiating, clear and solid” proposal built on “almost thirty years of experience” and on an academic offering integrated into its own ecosystem. UIC Barcelona is also approaching its 30th anniversary and twenty years of Medical studies.Three new master's degrees in health

UIC Barcelona's commitment to strengthening its health ecosystem is also reflected in the expansion of its postgraduate offering. For the next academic year, the university will incorporate three new master's degrees linked to this field, with different profiles and approaches but with the same objective: to delve into increasingly specialized areas connected with the new needs of the healthcare sector.  The first of the new programs is the university master's degree in Respiratory and Cardiac Physiotherapy, aimed at both active professionals and researchers. According to the university, the program aims to respond to the growing demand for highly qualified physiotherapists in the comprehensive management of adult, pediatric, and critically ill patients, and emphasizes intervention in situations of great respiratory and cardiac complexity.  The new offer also incorporates the Master's degree in International Continuing Education in Bioethics and Healthcare Professionalism. In this case, the proposal is aimed at healthcare professionals and graduates who carry out their activity in care, research, or training environments. The program seeks to reinforce reflection and preparation on ethical and professional issues within clinical and clinical training contexts.  The third launch is the Master's degree in Bioinformatics & AI for Healthcare, driven by Biomedical Sciences and taught entirely in English. The university presents it as a unique program because it combines bioinformatics and artificial intelligence applied to health in a single proposal, two areas that increasingly weigh more in biomedical research and in the transformation of healthcare services.  

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When a supermarket receives fresh fruit first thing in the morning, a factory avoids halting production due to a lack of components, or a hospital has the necessary materials at the right moment, behind it all there is often invisible but decisive work: logistics. In recent years, this field has ceased to be a secondary component to become a key element of the global economy and a profession with ever-increasing strategic weight within companies.In Catalonia, this shift has been accompanied by a growing offer of master's degrees and postgraduate courses linked to logistics and the supply chain. This is the case, for example, of the master's degree in Supply Chain Management and Technology at La Salle URL; the online master's degree in Logistics Management at the UOC; the master's degree in Supply Chain Management, Technology and Sustainability at UPF-BSM; the master's degree in Logistics, Supply Chain and Maritime Business at TecnoCampus, or programs such as the master's degree in Logistics and Supply Chain Management that the UAB promotes within an international consortium, among others. This long list of degrees reflects the extent to which the sector has ceased to be a peripheral specialization to consolidate itself as its own training field, increasingly connected with technology, sustainability, and global business management.An increasingly complete profile

“Before the pandemic, logistics was a more invisible area in the company, almost always in the background”, Concha Gaudó, director of the master’s degree in Supply Chain Management and Technology at La Salle Campus Barcelona, points out to ARA. As she explains, the disruptions of recent years, from covid to geopolitical uncertainty, have placed the supply chain “at the center of strategic decisions for many organizations”, and this has also transformed the type of professionals that are in demand.

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University of Barcelona (UB)

Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)

Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC)

Open University of Catalonia (UOC)

International University of Catalonia (UIC)

University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC)

Pompeu Fabra University (UPF)

Blanquerna - Ramon Llull University (Blanquerna-URL)

Expand the offering with new courses related to business, technology, engineering, and international law. IQS incorporates the Master's in Accounting, Data Analytics, and ESG Reporting, focused on advanced accounting, data analysis, and sustainability reporting. La Salle adds programs in Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence for Business Management, and Acoustics, Audio, and Vibrations. Esade, for its part, incorporates the university master's degree in International Business Law, designed for legal specialization in global business environments.

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