Ale-Hop opens 50 new shops in three years with two in Tenerife in 2015

The famous life-sized Frisian cow has been cloned 103 times so that one stands outside each of its stores in Spain and Portugal.

And few people can resist stroking her or patting her head as they walk in or out.

Revealing figures for the close of 2014, Grimalt says the chain, which started off as one small, family-run shop in Ondara (Alicante province) has opened 50 shops since the end of 2011, having set up 53 in the previous decade.

The store has also doubled its turnover in that time.

It sells everything from scarves, bags, purses and jewellery through to 'novelty' items, decorations, crockery, fridge magnets and stocking-fillers, all at very reduced prices.

Although Ale-Hop has more stores in the three provinces of the Comunidad Valenciana - Castellón, Valencia and Alicante - than anywhere else, it is also present in Barcelona and Tarragona (Catalunya), Madrid, the Basque Country, Pontevedra (Galicia), parts of Castilla y León (the provinces of Salamanca, Segovia and Burgos), Murcia, La Rioja, the province of Toledo (Castilla-La Mancha) and the two Andalucía provinces of Granada and Sevilla.

It does not yet have any branches in the Balearics, or on the Costa del Sol.

In April last year, Ale-Hop opened three stores on the Costa Brava, in Lloret de Mar, Malgrat de Mar and Salou, and in January this year the firm finally broke into the Canary Islands market with two shops in Puerto de los Cristianos, Arona and in San Cristóbal de la Laguna, both in Tenerife.

As yet, Ale-Hop does not offer online sales, but most of Spain's more heavily-populated areas have at least one, especially in coastal towns.