and YouTube accounts share pictures and videos of products and company practices. Modern changes Mercadona was the first Spanish company to use barcodes in its stores. The system has since permitted greater monitoring of product movement in addition to an increase in the speed of customer checkout times. Mercadona also has an automated distribution center on the outskirts of Madrid, where computer monitors keep track of orders while robot arms do all the work. Revenue Employees Mercadona employs more than 90,000 workers, all on permanent contracts. Upon hire, workers are required to complete four weeks of training. Employees must also go through twenty additional hours of training each year. Employees receive salaries above the national average of workers in the grocery store industry and the majority of employees receive a bonus each year. Leaders of Mercadona believe this combination of training and payment creates employees who are dedicated and flexible when it comes to meeting customer needs. It is also believed to have helped the company to maintain a relatively low level of employee turnover, only 5% in 2012. Gluten-free products Gluten-free products were hard to come by in Spain, which prompted Mercadona to create a whole line of gluten-free products at very affordable prices. Mercadona offers over 850 products for the wheat-intolerant. Mercadona has received over 750 comments, suggestions and requests from wheat-intolerant customers and coeliac associations in 2013, and has acted on these by passing them onto distribution companies and food manufacturers, as well as the store's own factories. Mercadona aims to create products that taste as close as possible to their mainstream counterparts while keeping the costs as low as possible. Products for the wheat-intolerant at Mercadona include yogurt, instant potato for making 'tortilla', or Spanish omelet, beans, sauces, hot chocolate powder, snack mixes, sliced bread, and even iced lollies and drinkable sorbets. It is said that the gluten-free movement started in Mercadona when a member of the founding family was diagnosed with coeliac disease. Customer service The website caters to speakers of Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Basque. References External links Retail companies established in 1977 Companies based in the Valencian Community Supermarkets of Spain Spanish brands 1977 establishments in Spain Supermarkets Food retailers Companies based in Valencia 1977 establishments