Cuba: The Spanish company Vima doubles its income despite the crisis on the island

Havana/The group Vima Foodsknown in Cuba for its low-quality food products, foresees a turnover of 250 million dollars (216 million euros) in 2026, a figure higher than last year and more than double the what it reported in 2024. In a statement distributed to the media this Tuesday, the Spanish company assures that it also plans to double that income in five years, thanks to the expansion of its business in America and the “jump” into markets in Europe and Africa.

Thus, by 2030 the firm, whose name comes from the union of the initials of its founder, Víctor Moro Suárez, estimates to reach 500 million dollars (432 million euros), driven by “its recent change of visual identity and its positioning as a trusted partner” in what they call in the sector “horeca channel” – an acronym for hotels, restaurants and caterings– and in retail sales “worldwide.”

This year they also plan to become the “comprehensive distribution solution” for Spanish and international brands “with an expansion strategy in global markets.” This offer to serve as a “bridge between Spanish production and global demand” is considered by Vima as “a step forward”, for which it relies on “its consolidated infrastructure, its knowledge of local markets and its network of relationships with operators, supermarkets and distributors in more than 30 countries”.

The company boasts of operating “in more than 10,000 points of sale” and “in the main supermarket chains in America”

The company boasts of operating “in more than 10,000 points of sale” and having a presence “in the main supermarket chains in America such as Walmart, Chedraui, Rey, Éxito, Soriana or Carrefour.” Likewise, he points out that he supplies “the main hotel chains in the region.”

In its statement it does not detail how the business is distributed among the seven countries where it claims to have distribution centers – Spain, the United States, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Panama and China, as ordered in the text – but, according to its figures from last year, the Island is its main market, almost half of its business volume. Then, they reported that of the almost 106 million euros of business volume of the group’s Coruña subsidiary –Corporación Alimentaria Vima–, 49 corresponded to operations with Cuba, followed by the Dominican Republic, with 33, and Mexico with 15.4. This implies a very minority margin – about 9 million euros – for the rest of the world where it presumes to operate.

In Cuba, Vima products, which range from frozen vegetables to pre-cooked foods, including canned vegetables, jams and grains, are as ubiquitous in stores as they are reviled by their buyers. Added to the bad reputation for its quality, in the midst of the unprecedented crisis in the country, is the high prices at which it sells in the Cimex dollarized storesbelonging to the Business Administration Group (Gaesa), the conglomerate of the Armed Forces.

A liter and a half bottle of water costs one dollar, twice as much as in a private business, and rice, at 1,000 pesos per kilogram, when it is 600 in MSMEs.

Another thing has proliferated in recent times, not only in its own establishments but in other dollar stores: green reusable bags with the Vima logo. Its price is 0.40 cents and, since there are almost never free plastic bags in these markets, the customer is forced to buy it. An ingenious advertisement paid for by the users of the state-owned stores where the Spanish company sells its merchandise.

The products of that brand, moreover, are not found in Spanish supermarkets, nor in Mexico City, but no one would know this by reading the corporate information, in which it seems that the Island occupies just one more space, and not the pillar of the conglomerate.

Vima insists on describing itself as a “family business whose roots are linked to the Galician fishing sector”, despite being very little known in that land, and emphasizes its renewed expansionist ambitions. “One of our crucial markets continues to be America, where we already have a very consolidated presence from north to south. However, our vocation is global; we are preparing the ground for a large-scale expansion towards Europe and Africa,” Víctor Moro Morros-Sarda, vice president of the conglomerate and son of the president and founder, Víctor Moro Suárez, is quoted in the text.

Their statements continue to emphasize the company’s future intention: “We want Spanish and international brands to see Vima Foods not only as a distributor, but as a strategic ally. We have the infrastructure, local knowledge in complex markets and the necessary logistics to bring the quality of our products to any corner of the world.” And they conclude: “Our recent participation in the Alimentaria fair has been the turning point to show this new identity and our ability to scale the business exponentially between now and 2030.”

“We have the infrastructure and logistics necessary to bring the quality of our products to any corner of the world”

Except in this statement, on the other hand, the Moro have never hidden their link with the Island. Moro Morros-Sarda He got married in style in Havana in December 2023, and his father – son of Víctor Moro Rodríguez, a politician of the Spanish Transition, who died in 2021 and also at the head of a frozen packaging conglomerate – lived for more than 25 years in Cuba, where he was president of the Association of Spanish Businessmen in the country.

Last year, in a report published by the local press, they highlighted a “new subsidiary” created by the group on the Island, Vima Caribe, intended to channel “all commercial operations to a new branch, a company with 100% foreign capital, in charge of importing, storing, marketing and distributing the group’s products in Cuba.”

It was thus clear that that “collaboration project” between Vima and Gaesasigned in 2024, went beyond the management of several “dollarized” stores. It involved the legal creation of a new company, of which the official Cuban press has not reported.

In the same chronicle, Digital Economy gave other details about the ups and downs of the subsidiaries of Vima Foods, which was not in vain referred to as “a widely spread conglomerate.” For example, that Corporación Alimentaria Vima had “transferred” its corporate employees in Spain to a new company, CS Vima, domiciled in Madrid. It is in the Spanish capital where the head of the conglomerate is registered, which until March 2023 was located in Panama.

That same year, as it appears in the Commercial Registry, the group moved its registered office to Spain and transformed from a public limited company to a limited company, something that, above all, further reinforces the family’s control over the company and external investors.

In 2001, its income had been, as detailed, 25 million euros. That is to say, in a quarter of a century, the business has multiplied almost tenfold.

The origin and growth of his million-dollar business remains more opaque. The Panama Papers, publication of the database of the Mossack Fonseca law firm by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), revealed in 2016 that Vima World – which has changed its name several times since it was founded – was among the companies registered in tax havens.

In the ICIJ search engine it appears as founded in January 1994 in the British Virgin Islands. However, Moro Suárez himself admitted in an interview with the Galician press in 2006 that his empire began in Cuba. When asked by the journalist about how he “learned” to have “one hundred and sixty employees who serve twenty million meals around the world,” the businessman responded: “I found a work niche in the Caribbean area, starting from Cuba, and that circumstance led me to organize this group of companies.”

Another previous note, published in The Voice of Galiciaalso corroborated it: “Vima was born in Havana in 1994, to take advantage of the opening of the Cuban market to tourist investment and become the main distributor to hotels and restaurants.” In 2002, the information indicated that Vima World, “a distributor based in Vigo and 100% owned by the Galician Moro family,” was the leader of the sector in Cuba, controlling 15% of food distribution and 25% of supply to hotels. In 2001, its income had been, as detailed, 25 million euros. That is to say, in a quarter of a century, business has multiplied almost tenfold.

How a company could be founded in Cuba, run by a foreigner, in the mid-nineties, and reach those figures in a few years, is one of the unknowns raised by Vima, which began to appear in establishments on the Island just at that time, that of dollarization and the desperation of the Special Period. The answer can be found in that 2006 interview, in which the journalist wrote that, according to what he had been told, Moro Suárez was related to personalities of the regime, such as Fidel Castro himself.