Mercadona wants to put an end to the plastic bags. Arrives in Portugal in July

The company intends to open a dozen stores in Portugal this year. Customers will be able to choose from three bag options for their recycled and reusable purchases.

[dropcap type=”background”]M[/dropcap]ercadona plans to complete in April the replacement of plastic bags with paper bags and other reusable ones, which will be produced through plastic packaging recovered in its stores. The brand has already started this process in its stores in Spain, something that should reach Portugal in July with the opening of the new store.

In this way, customers will be able to choose between three possibilities in the purchase: a paper bag, a 50% / 70% recycled plastic bag from the Mercadona stores and the raffia bag, according to information available from Mercadona.

With this, the goal is to recycle 3,000 tons of plastic packaging each year from its stores to make these bags of recycled material.

In addition, the company intends to reduce the amount of plastic that is wasted in the sections of the fresh and has put another more ‘sustainable’ device to dispense the bags. Also within this scope, Mercadona expects the sacks of these sections to be “replaced by others of compostable material before 2021“.

Before opening, Mercadona is studying Portuguese

Mercadona will open the first store in Portugal in July, but during the second half of the year, there will be another eight to 10 openings in the districts of Porto, Braga and Aveiro. Meanwhile, Mercadona is already here to study the tastes and habits of the Portuguese.

To this end, the Spanish chain has opened an ideas laboratory in Matosinhos, which helps the “Mercadona team to define, with Portuguese customers, the range of products in Portugal, fully adapted to the needs of this market.”

In total, Mercadona already has 300 Portuguese employees and continues to recruit. You can consult the vacancies existing here.