Coto C.I.C.S.A., (mostly known for its tradename Coto) is an Argentine supermarket chain founded by Alfredo Coto in 1970 as a butcher shop. The first Coto supermarket was opened in the city of Mar de Ajó in La Costa Partido in 1987.[2] The chain currently has 120 supermarkets, most of them in Greater Buenos Aires.
Overview
Childhood memories of the downtown Buenos Aires butcher shop opened by Joaquín Coto, an immigrant from Galicia (Spain), inspired his son, Alfredo, to open his own, in the Boedo neighborhood, in 1970. Building on the customer base he and his wife, Gloria, had cultivated through wholesale delivery, Coto owned a slaughterhouse and 34 retail outlets by the time he opened his first supermarket in Mar de Ajó, a seaside tourist destination, in 1987.[3]
Coto Supermarkets expanded rapidly during the 1990s, and by 1996, netted over a billion US dollars in sales. The company opened five shopping malls from the late 1990s onwards (each anchored by a Coto