Letter from Leire Mugerza

President of the EROSKI’s Governing Board

We have arrived. A sentence which hold many meanings in these uncertain times. It is an uncertainty which does not bury its roots in internal elements, but follows external causes: a pandemic, inflation, a war in Europe… It is an uncertainty which obliges us to rethink our priorities. The unrest and suffering of society is not separate from business. We must be an active part of the solution.

Mondragon Corporation have a motto which we, its cooperatives, also make our own: Humanity at work. Never has it been more apt than in the last two years. The people who make up EROSKI have done our best to accompany society through this period. Under pressure, but with soul. We have arrived. Or we are arriving, because we will remain aware of the direction being taken by the war in
Ukraine and we will act to cushion its effects at a human level.

We have reached thousands of people in need

In 2021 we reached many more people through thousands of small donations. It is like magic to reach such a level of social capillarity: between EROSKI and our clients we have supported more than 425,000 people through 260 social entities.

This magic has, among other things, made the Céntimos Solidarios (cents in solidarity) programme possible, achieving more than 14 million in donations. But there’s more: 12,400 clients have selected the social causes to which our new resources will be donated thanks to the active listening work we have developed with them in the last quarter of 2021.

As well as this, we contribute via other programmes such as Zero Waste, to mitigate food wastage and we collaborate with hundreds of organisations such as food banks to build a fairer and more sustainable society.

We have arrived at a better informed consumer

The consumer is our raison d’être as a consumer cooperative. We are convinced that a better trained and educated consumer will take better decisions which will affect their health in a positive way. We had this in mind when in 2019 we were the first company in Spanish distribution to introduce the front-end Nutri-Score label in addition to the traffic light label already in use for more than a
decade. Data published in the magazine Consumer in July clearly show that consumers are positively influenced by the information we provide. We have also arrived here.

Thanks to a joint effort

2021 has also been the start of a new era for EROSKI. A rebirth that would be unthinkable without the involvement of the entire social collective and, above all, without their sacrifice, work and dedication. The decisions we have taken have allowed us, today, to transform the Group. Thanks to them we have arrived.

And now we must move forward to strengthen this new era

We know that the strength of cooperatives is based on the solidarity of many, which is fed by effort, determination, and individual knowledge. Excellent individuals who, added together, multiply our strength. We have experienced it. The difference in a project like EROSKI lies not only in having a good leader, but also in having a good cooperative leader, and we have shared this too. Thank you,
Agustin Markaide for sharing a way of doing business, a distribution business but with a constant adaptation of its goals.

We begin a new era with a new vision, with Rosa Carabel, maintaining the Mission of this cooperative project. We will continue advancing in favour of consumer health and sustainability in our environment, in our project EROSKI with you.