Serunion faces the future with ambition after overcoming the years of pandemic. The collective catering giant has exceeded its pre-covid turnover, earning 518 million euros in the fiscal year 2023, closed in September.
“The growth has been 15% because in 2022 we were still suffering the effects of the pandemic, a crisis during which activity fell by 70%,” comments Antoni Llorens, CEO and president of Serunion. Despite the ravages of the pandemic, the company remains a giant in the sector. It has a market share of 23%, adding its activity in schools, hospitals, residences and companies. The number of employees exceeds 20,600, of which 9,000 are dining hall monitors (which Serunion subrogates to each center that hires its service). Structural services are developed at the Barcelona headquarters with a team of more than 500 people.
For the first time in more than 30 years, the company's ambition goes beyond restaurant services. This year, Serunion will begin providing cleaning, maintenance, janitorial and gardening services. “These are activities that generate many synergies with the traditional business and we think that our clients may be interested in contracting all these services with us for reasons of efficiency,” says Llorens.
This commitment to diversification was born as a result of a change in shareholders. Since 2001, Serunion was owned by the French group Elior, who last year sold 48% of the capital to another French group, called Derichebourg. Family-owned, this new group has a presence in community catering but also in other services such as cleaning. Hence Serunion's commitment to this new activity. In fact, the change in ownership has caused Serunion to assume the activity of Grupo Net, based in Elx and specialized in cleaning services throughout Spain. Bills about 40 million euros annually. At the same time, Serunion has lost its business in Portugal, which has passed into the hands of the Derichebourg group's subsidiary in that country. In this way, Elior has abandoned the management of Serunion in favor of Derichebourg, who will maintain the Catalan brand as well as the management team, which has been leading Serunion for more than 30 years.
The experience is something that defines them and that is why Llorens downplays the incident that took place last year in several schools in the Basque Country and La Rioja, where larvae appeared in the food. “Zero risk does not exist and even less so when you handle such a large volume of food. Luckily, the larvae were not harmful and were not ingested by the students, since they were detected in time,” says the manager.
