The economic crisis does not seem to be affecting Spain's leading supermarket chain, Mercadona, which closed last year with profits of €336 million euros, up 39% on 2006.

Company president Juan Roig (second photo) said yesterday "Despite the rumours, people have not stopped buying. It's not true that people are eating more potatoes and less sirloin."

One of the company's main inititatives for this year is to get rid of in-store manned delicattesen counters, which will be replaced with self-service shelf units.

The experiment has already been a huge success in the meat and fresh fruit and vegetable sections, and there are unconfirmed future plans to extend the scheme to the fresh fish department as well.

During last year, the chain opened 87 new stores and created 3,000 new jobs and now has 1,137 stores across the country and a total workforce of more than 60,000.