Malvón: Malvón: the match by match of the king of Argentine empanadas | Business | EUROtoday

Fast meals appears to don’t have any limits. Argentine empanadas have been the penultimate to achieve the market and it’s a Spanish firm, Malvón, the market chief. With a manufacturing of 12 million empanadas final yr and 92 shops – 89 in Spain and three in Oporto (Portugal) -, it had a turnover of 16.4 million euros in 2023, which represents a development of 14%.

The historical past and fast improvement of this firm have rather a lot to do with probability and the entrepreneurial spirit of its founders, Alejandro Polo, present CEO, and his associate David Alvado. In 2000, at lower than 20 years outdated, these two boys entered the cell phone fever with the sale of those gadgets after which moved on to the brick market in Tarragona and the motorhome enterprise.

And this stressed spirit got here along with probability: they determined to assist an Argentine buddy, Claudia, who made some beautiful desserts. She financed a pastry store on Hilarión Eslava Street in Madrid. “In this store we found that 90% of the turnover came from Argentine empanadas and not from sweets. So, we got rid of the other businesses, closed the store and reopened it as an empanada store in 2017. We started opening new stores; three more in 2018, and in 2019 we already had 15″, explains Alejandro Polo. The name of the company also comes from her Argentine friend: Malvón was a type of geranium that she had in her house and it strongly resisted the onslaught of the weather.

The rapid development of this business was achieved thanks to a franchise system. The Malvón company is the direct owner of 30% of the stores, while the remaining 70% are operated under that formula. Curiously, a former director of Burger King is the largest franchisee, with 25 stores of these Argentine empanadas. The weight between own stores and franchises is intended to be maintained for the Spanish market, but not in its international expansion. In the month of February they opened the first Malvón store in the capital of Slovenia (Ljubljana) through a master franchisee who approached them. In this business model, the franchisor grants the franchisee the right to operate their business in a large territory, such as a region or a country. A model that they also want to use to open stores in the Canary Islands.

They are currently in talks with master franchisees to expand their business in France, Italy and Germany. “They have been interested in our product, and it is better that they bring it directly to them because they know their market and the tastes of their customers better,” explains this 41-year-old from Madrid. They have additionally acquired curiosity from buyers from Canada and the United States, however, for now, they rule it out, since they wish to have the manufacturing of the empanadas centralized in Spain and transportation may very well be an issue.

The CEO of Malvón expects to shut 2024 with a turnover of 20 million euros with the growth of the model. Without a doubt, a pending concern is to develop in Catalonia, a area with extra information of this product the place they at the moment have solely seven shops in comparison with the 49 in Madrid. “We also have an interesting exclusivity agreement with El Corte Inglés, with 10 stores open in their establishments where they give us good locations.” And he provides: “Then there are more anecdotal things, since we are present at the Cívitas Metropolitano stadium of Atlético de Madrid. They also came looking for us to open a store and, it is said, it was the idea of ​​the coach's wife, Diego Pablo Simeone,” he feedback.

For Polo, success relies upon largely on the placement of the shop, which they immediately approve to their franchisees. “It is worth being in a more central location even if the cost of renting the premises is higher, since the customer repetition rate is higher. In addition, this formula allows us to have a more recurring business compared to other chains more focused on the tourism sector.” Furthermore, he guidelines out the entry of cash from monetary funds into the corporate's shareholding: “We would only be interested in an industrial partner, not just a financial one,” he explains.

Polo and Alvado are the house owners of 80% of Malvón's capital, and the opposite 20% is distributed between two shareholders, one in every of them, Javier Díaz, concerned within the administration of the corporate. The want for cash to develop was not urgent at first. They invested within the empanada enterprise with the sources from their earlier companies and, as well as, “Malvón was profitable from the first year and until 2021 we were self-financing.” And he provides: “In these years we have not distributed a dividend and we reinvest all the profits because there is nothing more profitable.”

As of 2021, they started to work with financial institution financing, though Polo doesn’t rule out different varieties of methods to boost sources sooner or later if essential. This yr they’ve made a big funding of six million euros with the development of a manufacturing facility in Madrid that has 5,000 sq. meters that offers them the opportunity of persevering with to develop. “The objective is to have the capacity to supply empanadas in the expansion process in which we are immersed. We produce all the empanadas, whether we sell them here, in Portugal or in Slovenia or, in the future, in Germany, France or Italy. The idea is to have total control of production,” explains Alejandro Polo. The empanadas are deep-frozen uncooked after which distributed to the shops, which bake twice each day, one within the morning and one within the afternoon.

500 staff

Malvón – personal shops and franchisees – employs 500 folks, of which 60% are ladies. Without a doubt, one of the curious jobs is that of the so-called repulgadores, who’re devoted to closing Argentine empanadas by hand, one thing that on this world is linked to the next high quality of the product in comparison with mechanical closing. “We are in the gourmet category with a quality product, and that is where we compete. We are currently leaders in Spain, but we have great competition with Las Muns in Barcelona where they have 30 stores and are in the same segment of gourmet quality empanadas. Then there are many small ones, some self-employed, and others low-cost that are not in our category and offer inferior quality,” explains Alejando Polo.

The founding father of Malvón considers that the Argentine empanada nonetheless has an extended approach to go as a result of it isn’t a product well-known to most people. His nice competitor inside quick meals is pizza and he provides for example that when 60 years in the past there was an explosion of empanada outlets in Argentina, “pizzerias in this country began to introduce empanadas because it took away their market share. Of course, we are not planning to incorporate pizzas,” he concludes.

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