Euro Opens Grocery Store in Booming Part of Belén

Euro Supermercado recently opened its newest grocery store in Medellín in the Loma de los Bernal barrio of Belén. Loma de los Bernal is a booming part of Belén, which has seen many new apartments built recently.

Within a five-minute walk from the new grocery store are at least 25 high-rise apartment buildings, many of which were built within the last year.

Over a year ago I used to live in an apartment building nearby, located less than a five-minute walk from the new Euro. Many of the new apartment buildings near the new Euro were under construction when I lived nearby.

When I lived there the nearest grocery store was the Exito on Diagonal 75B, which was a hilly 10-minute walk away. The new Euro is conveniently located near many apartment buildings in the area.

Euro has more grocery stores in Medellín in Central Mayorista in Itagüí, Florida Parque in Robledo, in Niquía near the metro station plus two Euro stores in Envigado and one on Avenida Nutibara in Laureles.

Behind the new Euro in Loma de los Bernal, a small strip center is being built to house a number of small shops.

The Euro Store Opening Promotion

Euro had an opening promotion for its new Belén store of 20 percent off from January 15 to 18, which brought people from further away.

I went to the new Euro store on January 18 and I have never seen such a busy grocery store in Colombia.

Cars were parked on the streets, even a long way away from the new store. The Euro store was packed and I saw many people with full carts. I was told the wait in the lines to checkout were upwards of an hour or more.

I decided not to wait in the long lines and only bought 10 items so I could use the rapid check out line.

Euro is a nice grocery store with prices that look to be similar to the prices found at the Exito stores in Belén. However, Euro sells some imported items that can be difficult to find in other grocery stores in Medellín.

I bought some imported Van Camps beans, which cost 2,544 pesos ($1.07) for each can, and Vlassic dill pickles, which cost 7,432 pesos ($3.12) for a 46-oz jar.

The new PriceSmart warehouse club store in Belén, which isn’t too far away, had both these items the first time I went but not the last two times I went.

Euro sells a number of other imported items including Kraft Parmesan cheese, Del Monte ketchup, Hunts BBQ and tomato sauces, Wesson oil, Pam cooking spray, French’s mustard and several other products.

Inside the new Euro is a Pasteur pharmacy that was having a 10 percent off promotion during Euro’s grand opening promotion.

Euro’s Competition

Euro has some big grocery store competition in Medellín including the hypermarket stores Exito and Jumbo.

Medellín-based Exito is the largest grocery store operator in Colombia and it has opened mini-Exito stores in many locations in the Medellín area.

Exito and Jumbo have frequent shopper cards where you can receive points (puntos), which can be accumulated to use for future purchases. Euro doesn’t have a frequent shopper card.

Other grocery store competition in Medellín includes Carulla (owned by Exito) and Olimpica.

For those who have been in Colombia for a while you may also remember Pomona. This was another grocery store chain bought by Exito, which renamed the Pomona stores to Carulla in 2012.

Why Loma de Los Bernal?

I believe that Euro chose Loma de Los Bernal for the location for its newest grocery due to a recent construction boom with many new high-rise apartment buildings in the area and a lack of grocery stores.

All the new apartment buildings in Loma de Los Bernal is also likely why PriceSmart chose to build its first warehouse store in Medellín nearby (about a 20 minute walk), on the west side of the Olaya Herrera airport.

I liked living in Loma de Los Bernal for over a year. It is a hilly area that is primarily a residential neighborhood with very few businesses so it doesn’t have much traffic at night, which makes it a peaceful neighborhood.

I believe some foreigners looking for unfurnished apartments in Medellín and looking to escape the higher costs and heavy car traffic found in El Poblado should look at the Loma de Los Bernal barrio in Belén as an option.

Costs to rent unfurnished apartments in Loma de Los Bernal will on average be about 20-25 percent cheaper than apartments in El Poblado.

With all the new apartment buildings in the area there are many apartments available. On the Espacio Urbano website, there are over eight pages of listings of over 250 unfurnished apartments for rent in Loma de Los Bernal.

The only drawback about the area is it isn’t near a metro stop so you will need to use taxis or buses if you don’t have a vehicle.

Like the story? Take a second to support Medellin Living on Patreon!