(March 20): Jeronimo Martins SGPS SA, Portugal’s biggest retailer by market value, is working on a strategic plan for the next five years that will involve boosting annual sales to as much as €50 billion (RM241.77 billion).

“We’re working on a plan to find out exactly which areas we want to grow,” chief executive officer Pedro Soares dos Santos said at a press conference in Lisbon on Thursday. “We have the ambition to reach €50 billion in sales by 2029 or 2030.”

Jeronimo Martins, which also operates in eastern Europe, said late on Wednesday that 2024 revenue rose 9.3% to €33 billion. The owner of Biedronka, Poland’s biggest supermarket chain, will continue to offer low prices in a bid to bolster sales amid fierce competition in the markets where it operates, Soares dos Santos said.

The CEO said agribusiness may “play a role” in his company’s plan to increase revenue. He didn’t say when Jeronimo Martins would present its new strategic programme.

“We have to assess the current value of our operations and what needs to be included in our portfolio and in that sense agribusiness can play a role,” Soares dos Santos said.

The Biedronka unit currently accounts for more than 70% of the group’s revenue. Jeronimo Martins bought the Polish retailer in 1997. It has promoted the brand’s “everyday low prices” while building up the operation from a couple of hundred stores mostly in smaller, hardscrabble cities, to a network of more than 3,700 stores and about 30% of the Polish market.

Biedronka opened its first stores in Slovakia earlier this month. Jeronimo Martins is also investing in expanding in its home market of Portugal as well as in Colombia, where it operates the Ara chain. 

“There’s no doubt that we’ve had a decade of great growth and consolidation, and now we have to look at the next five years,” Soares dos Santos said. “This is what will be the biggest challenge for this executive committee.”

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