Continente raises prices, opens 100 stores, and won’t get into “craziness and problems”

Sonae will open 100 new stores over the next few years. Experience abroad is not to be repeated.

40 years after the opening of the first hypermarket, today next to NorteShopping (Matosinhos), the Continent is expanding in Portugal and wants to reach 500 hypermarkets and supermarkets in the next five years.

100 more stores by 2030, 3,000 more people hired. Sonae MC, with two new spaces in Alijó and Pombal, will close this year with a total of 403 spaces.

The CEO of Sonae MC, Luis Moutinhotold journalists that “there is still a lot of room to grow in urban areas”. To the “great opportunities” are in Greater Lisbon and no interior of the country, essentially “in areas where the Continent is not yet located”, quotes the .

A bet is in Portugal, not abroad. Sonae tried to impose itself on the Brazil (it didn’t go well, and went out of business 20 years ago) and tried to enter Angola, without success.

“The food retail business, especially in the concept we have of a broad assortment, is very, very local. We will not indulge in crazy things that could do us a lot of harm”, admitted Luís Moutinho.

“If we don’t see this opportunity to internationalize in the food retail business, we don’t want to do it. We don’t want to get in trouble”, added the CEO, who recalled that growing in Portugal “is already a lot of work”.

Price rise

At the same event, the director of Sonae MC who prices in Continente stores will rise in 2026. Why “there is no other remedy”.

“Prices have to go up. If there is inflation, prices have to rise. There may be higher or lower inflation, and it is expected to be lower [em 2026] than in the recent past, in 2022 and 2023. What we expect is that inflation levels next year will be stable, at levels well below those of recent years. But whenever there is inflation, prices have to rise”, recalled the official.

Luís Moutinho stressed that the food retail business in Portugal “is of low margins.”

The CEO also left a tip about the checkouts where customers pass their purchases to pay: “Sometimes customers see efficiencies that we don’t see. They think we have self-checkout to reduce the number of people, but it’s to serve them more quickly.”