Jerónimo Martins Agro-Alimentar: 10 years of agribusiness
MOVING INTO A NEW BUSINESS AREA: AGRIBUSINESS
It has been quite a journey, starting back in 2014, when an opportunity arose in the dairy business and Jerónimo Martins acquired the industrial infrastructure of Serraleite, a long-time supplier to Pingo Doce.
This was just the first of several agri-food ventures the Jerónimo Martins Group invested in. A bold decision, and one that begs the question: why? The idea of moving into agribusiness came from Pedro Soares dos Santos, Chairman and CEO of the Jerónimo Martins Group, who could clearly see that “either we found ways of continuing to develop, or sooner or later we would pay the price for failing to do so. And as we were born pioneers, we got down to work.”
Internally, the Group could see how the food retail sector would develop. In order to protect supply chains and ensure quality control processes, it needed to be close to the production sector. Pedro Soares dos Santos explained that “for a company like ours, essentially engaged in selling fresh produce, one thing is fundamental: to be fresh, it has to be close” and, to achieve this, “nothing better than becoming a player in the sector ourselves.” Another factor mentioned by Pedro Soares dos Santos was that the Group was already moving towards the adoption of best sustainability practices.
Ten years later, in 2024, the Group was reaping the dividends and was proud to have built up “internal know-how, mainly among people who came from retail and moved into production. This essential expertise will be a great help in the future.” In 2024, the agribusiness sector was operating in four different areas – dairy, livestock farming, aquaculture, and fruit and vegetables –, supplying Group companies and exporting to other markets.
DAIRY
Established in 2014
Products: Fresh and ultra pasteurized milk, cream and butter.
AQUACULTURE
Established in 2016
Products: Seabass and seabream; salmon (28% stake at Andfjord Salmon).
LIVESTOCK FARMING
Established in 2015
Products: Angus and Wagyu beef, lamb and poultry.
FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
Established in 2020
Products: Organic seedless grapes and oranges.
DAIRY: FROM THE INSIDE OUT
“In late 2014, we were celebrating our first deal taking us into the dairy sector,” explained António Serrano, CEO of Jerónimo Martins Agro-Alimentar. By taking over the dairy factory of Serraleite, a cooperative of local producers the Group had done business with for many years, Jerónimo Martins established itself as a challenger in the dairy sector.
But it was not all plain sailing. “The Serraleite dairy was more than 50 years old, production was 100% manual, and there were a lot of efficiency challenges,” said Pedro Freire, Executive Director for the dairy sector at JMA. In June 2016, work started on building a new production unit in the Portalegre region, using the most advanced technologies in the sector.
TERRA ALEGRE: QUALITY FROM THE SOURCE
Production at Terra Alegre began in 2018, with noticeable success. “While the old dairy produced six varieties of milk, we have increased to 70 different products, including butter and cream,” explained Pedro Freire. The quality of Terra Alegre’s products is built on the source of the raw material: milk. “We work with Portuguese producers up and down the country, with a relationship based on constantly sharing expertise,” explained Pedro Freire.
One of the most significant suppliers is Best Farmer, the livestock farming venture owned by Jerónimo Martins Agro-Alimentar, which produces beef and milk. By using cutting-edge technology, such as robotic milking, “we can immediately detect alterations in the milk that point to a health anomaly in the animal, and automatically separate the milk,” so it doesn’t contaminate the milk from other cows, says Liliana Mixão, Dairy Production Director at Best Farmer.
“We aim to develop products in line with consumer needs, but also to work closely with the scientific community and in compliance with the standards set by the toughest certification schemes,” adds Alexandra Ribeiro, Food Safety, Quality and R&D Manager at Terra Alegre.
In addition to animal welfare certification, Terra Alegre is certified under other schemes, such as for raw material sourcing (for example, organic or halal certification), occupational health and safety, and environmental certification.
LIVESTOCK FARMING
“It was a moment of great pride”. This is how António Serrano, CEO of Jerónimo Martins Agro-Alimentar, recalls the day when the first Angus cattle arrived at the farm in Manhente, northern Portugal. It was the start of the cattle farming venture, where the slow production cycles contrast sharply with the hectic pace of food distribution. There were plenty of challenges in store.
“The strategy was to bring animals to Portugal, for meat that we had previously imported, and to produce it ourselves on a large scale, in order to ensure uniform quality in the products we were aiming to sell,” says José Fraga, Executive Director for Livestock Farming at JMA. His previous experience as a meat category manager at Pingo Doce made him enthusiastic about investing in the livestock sector, in order to offer a distinctive product.
The original farm in Manhente was later joined by two more in central Portugal, and together they have been assuring the supply of Angus beef to the Pingo Doce and Recheio stores. Best Farmer has several certifications regarding its best practices, namely, the Welfair™ animal welfare certification since 2020, the organic production certification since 2021 and the International Featured Standard (IFS) Food v8 certification achieved since 2023.
ANIMAL WELFARE AT BEST FARMER
Best Farmer has adopted several animal welfare practices, such as playing classical music and massaging the cattle with rotating brushes. An advanced cooling system is used to minimise the effects of heat: the fans installed in the cattle sheds are automatically activated to ensure air circulation and ventilation when the temperature rises. The aim is to keep the animals comfortable, improve blood circulation and reduce heat stress.
DIET (FOR CATTLE) MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE
Best Farmer’s animals eat a variety of produce, from grapes to melons, carrots and tomatoes. The animals are fed a wet diet which makes use of fully nutritious by-products from the food industry. Best Farmer’s pastures also provide of 70% of the animals’ diet.
OTHER MEAT PRODUCED BY BEST FARMER
Wagyu beef
In 2023, Best Farmer started its first trials to produce Wagyu beef, a famous Japanese breed of cattle regarded as the best meat in the world.
Lamb
Much in demand in Portugal at Easter and Christmas, lamb is being produced in the Fundão region (Portugal highlands) since 2021.
Chicken
“Frango da Quinta” (Farm Chicken) replicates “old-fashioned” poultry farming, focusing on slower growth and more space.
FISH FROM AQUACULTURE
“Fish farming ensures the sustainability of the oceans. We have to produce our own food, relieve the pressure on fish stocks and ensure that the supply is sufficient to meet growing demand,” says Pedro Encarnação, Executive Director of Seaculture, JMA’s business unit dedicated to the production of fish from aquaculture.
The challenge of producing our own fish began off the continental coast of Portugal. The first trials were carried out in Sines in 2016, followed by Madeira in 2017. Seaculture discovered ideal conditions in the Atlantic for growing sea bass and bream, two very popular species in Portugal. The fish goes from the sea to the store in less than 48 hours, ensuring fresh, high-quality products.
And then we found even bigger fish to fry. In 2021, an opportunity for growth was identified in Morocco, “in a very interesting ecosystem, where the water has a different temperature profile from Portugal, enabling us to maximise the scale and efficiency of sea bass and bream farming”, explains António Serrano, CEO of Jerónimo Martins Agro-Alimentar.
Expansion didn’t stop there, and in 2022 a new production unit started up in the Algarve (southern Portugal). Cameras and sensors are two of the elements used in the monitoring systems installed at this unit. Seaculture has built an industrial refrigeration plant in the port area of Vila Real de Santo António, an investment that underlines the Company’s commitment to working closely with the local economy.
It takes less than 48 hours for the fish to get from sea to the store. In 2024, 4,300 tonnes of sea bass and sea bream were produced.
WILD VS. AQUACULTURE
When we talk about quality and freshness, we also talk about taste. At Seaculture, production takes place on the open sea. This means that the fish benefits from the unique conditions provided by the oceans, such as water flows or the surrounding environment, which helps to bring the taste closer to that of wild fish: “We carry out blind tastings between wild and our aquaculture fish and people can’t tell the difference between one and the other,” explains Pedro Encarnação.
ANDFJORD SALMON
On the island of Andøya, in the Vesterålen archipelago in the Norwegian Arctic, a local start-up has developed new technology and infrastructure from scratch to enable the growth of salmon farming in a controlled environment, benefiting from the unique conditions of the North Sea.
Using a flow-through method, tanks with a capacity of 27 million litres – enough to fill 14 Olympic swimming pools – are refilled daily with ocean water, free of impurities and rich in properties, to provide the right environment for the fish to grow in a natural and healthy way. This method, which replicates ocean conditions on land, is one of the most sustainable salmon farming methods in existence.
In 2024, the Jerónimo Martins Group held a 28% stake in the Company, making it the largest shareholder in Andfjord Salmon.
FRUIT AND VEGETABLES: SOWING THE FUTURE
In Ferreira do Alentejo, in southern Portugal, the challenge was to set up an organic fruit farm. “Organic farming is how we can stand out from the crowd. The Group’s vision is to be able to produce healthy, sustainable fruit and vegetables, while caring for the environment,” says Domingos Bastos, Executive Director for Fruit & Vegetables Farming.
With production certified under the GLOBAL G.A.P. standards (a certification programme that translates consumer demands into good farming practices), the grapes were harvested for the first time in 2023 and sold in 2024 “to Poland, Germany and Portugal,” explains Domingos Bastos. One thousand five hundred tonnes were produced in 2024 and the grapes had great visibility in the Pingo Doce and Biedronka stores.
Hey, Vita! grapes are organically grown, meaning they are sometimes smaller, but more flavoursome. “We don’t use chemicals of any kind, either as fertilisers and nutrients, or to control pests and diseases. We use only products that are organic or organically grown”, says Joaquim Praxedes, Agricultural Site Director at Hey, Vita!. The techniques used to regenerate the soil do not use fertilisers, and instead “sown particular crops that enrich the soil. Broad beans, for instance, absorb nitrogen and naturally incorporate it into the soil,” explains Joaquim Praxedes.
The fruit and vegetables area also developed partnerships for the production of stone fruit (peaches, nectarines and plums) and the Tango mandarin variety. There is also a partnership for the first harvest of organic oranges for the 2024-2025 campaign. By 2030, JMA plans to produce around 22,000 tonnes of fruit on 650 hectares of land.
340
hectares of organic orange orchards
190
hectares of stone fruit and tango mandarin
120
hectares of organic vineyards
