Nova Blog - The company that was stolen, and the organic grocery chain built in its shadow

Fernando Usera Rodés: the engineer who keeps building things from scratch

Fernando studied electrical engineering at ICAI in Madrid, did a year at IBM ("I hated it, three months was enough"), a stint at an energy consultancy ("also not for me"), and then in 2014 launched Alterna — an energy retailer — from a desk, with two co-founders and €20,000 each in seed capital. He had always known he wanted to build his own company: his grandfather was a serial entrepreneur, his father had built a business before qualifying as a notary, and the family culture had always said "you should try to have your freedom." What that meant in practice was: try it before you have a mortgage and children, because the same leap is ten times harder when you do.

Seven years later, Alterna had €113M in revenue and 180,000 clients. Then Fernando was fired. Two years after that, he co-founded Supernormal with his wife and sister — a business about as operationally different from an energy retailer as it is possible to be. The thread connecting both is the same instinct: find a market where incumbents are extracting value they haven't earned, and offer something better.

What is Supernormal and how does the business model work?

The idea for Supernormal came from Fernando's own experience as a shopper. He likes food. When he became independent and had to buy groceries, he found the existing options unsatisfying: large supermarkets offered convenience and range but mediocre produce; local markets offered quality but inconsistency — the carrot was excellent one week and insipid the next. The question he kept asking was: why?

The answer, once he pulled the thread, was the supply chain. A pineapple from Costa Rica in Mercadona has spent roughly three weeks between harvest and your plate. Fernando's co-founder puts it this way: "It's like buying a carrot at the supermarket, putting it in your fridge for three weeks, and then eating it." Industrial supply chains are designed for endurance, not flavour — varieties selected for shelf life, harvested underripe, transported across continents. The flavour is a casualty of the logistics.

The Supernormal thesis: produce what you can yourself (so you control variety, harvest timing and travel time), source the rest directly from local producers (no distributors), and sell it in small urban stores close enough to where people live that they can do their weekly shop without a car. The name itself is the pitch: food that tastes the way food is supposed to taste should be normal. That it isn't is the gap Supernormal is filling.

"The best way to guarantee to the customer that what I'm selling them is good — and where it comes from — is to make it myself. If I grow the carrot, I know the variety, I know what I've fed it, I know when I harvested it."

— Fernando Usera Rodés, Co-Founder · Supernormal

The store format is deliberately small: the largest location is 120 m². Each store has a café alongside the grocery section. The ~1,000 SKUs include no national brands that would also appear in Carrefour or Mercadona — the goal is that every product is either made by Supernormal or sourced from a producer whose work cannot easily be replicated elsewhere. The company is currently at three stores in Madrid (one opened 3 years ago, two newer with cafés), with two more opening shortly.

Supernormal P&L: the financial structure of an organic grocery store

Fernando is unusually transparent about the economics — a rare thing in food retail.

Supernormal — simplified P&L structure

Blended gross margin (retail + distribution + production)57% of revenue

Store costs (rent, utilities, in-store staff)~30% of revenue

Contribution margin after store costs~27% of revenue

Central costs (logistics hub, production kitchens, G&A)~13–16% of revenue

Store EBITDA (mature stores)~14% of revenue

Monthly revenue, café stores€75–80K/month growing toward €100K+

Monthly revenue, store without café€50K/month 30 m² store, Chamberí

Target annual revenue per mature store€1.2–2M/year 4–5 year ramp

Total investment to date (4 years)~€3–3.4M family-financed, no VCs

The key margin lever is vertical integration. By producing around 150 of 1,000 SKUs in-house — via the farm and two obradors (production kitchens) — Supernormal captures retail, distribution and production margin simultaneously on those products. National branded goods (yogurts, packaged goods) are where supermarkets make almost no margin; Supernormal deliberately minimises these and plans to eliminate them where possible.

Delivery aggregators (Glovo, Uber Eats) account for roughly 20% of sales but at lower margins — the platforms charge a commission and the company cannot pass this cost to customers without triggering penalties. Own e-commerce has never exceeded €5,000/month despite sustained effort: fresh grocery, Fernando concludes, is a category where people either want to browse in person or use third-party convenience platforms. There is no middle ground.

Does organic food taste better? The honest answer

What organic certification does and doesn't guarantee

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What organic certification does control

Restriction on synthetic pesticides, chemical fertilisers and certain production methods. For animal products: minimum space per animal, mandatory outdoor access, and welfare standards that directly affect product quality. Rigorous, clear and well-enforced in Spain.

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What organic certification does NOT control

Flavour. Variety selection. Harvest timing. Time from harvest to shelf. A tomato can be certified organic and taste of nothing. "I can make you an organic tomato that tastes absolutely like nothing — just like you can buy in many places."

🥩

Where organic reliably means higher quality: animal products

Organic standards for meat, eggs and dairy mandate welfare conditions (outdoor time, space) that directly improve product quality. You will almost always get a better product from organic animal farming than conventional — though premium conventional farming can match it.

🍅

Where organic does NOT reliably mean better: fruit and vegetables

A 15–20% price premium on vegetables is justified by lower yield per hectare (same land and labour cost, fewer kilos). It is not justified by guaranteed superior flavour. The flavour of Supernormal vegetables comes from variety selection and local sourcing — not the organic label itself.

How the Alterna energy business worked — and how it reached €113M

Alterna was founded in 2014 on the premise that Spain's liberalised energy retail market was being underserved by five incumbents charging 40–50% margins when the actual cost of serving a customer was a fraction of that. Fernando and his co-founders offered 15–20% margins, simpler bills and better service.

The business is structurally similar to SaaS: each additional customer costs almost nothing to serve once the system exists. Alterna built its entire billing platform, CRM and market-buying engine from scratch, designed and maintained by one exceptional developer. With 180,000 clients, the office team was just 20 people. The unit economics were straightforward: roughly €100 gross margin per client per year, meaning 100,000 clients = €10M gross profit and high incremental margins beyond that.

The breakthrough was the distribution partnership with Fonhouse — a telecom retailer with 500 stores across Spain. Fernando structured the deal as a revenue share rather than an upfront acquisition fee: Fonhouse received 50% of the margin on every client they brought in, for as long as the client stayed. This aligned incentives and turned Fonhouse's 500 stores into the most effective energy sales channel in Spain. In 2018 alone, Alterna grew from 10,000 to 80,000 clients — which simultaneously overwhelmed the billing system, triggered a €1.5M overnight guarantee demand from Red Eléctrica (caused by a model calculation error), and set the stage for the partnership that would eventually destroy the company.

"We got to 180,000 clients with 20 people in the office. The trick was that every additional client had to cost us almost nothing to serve. It really was like a software company — just with a much lower gross margin on revenue."

— Fernando Usera Rodés on Alterna

How Alterna was taken — the corporate story

The Alterna timeline: from €60K seed to boardroom coup

2014

Founded with €20,000 each from three co-founders

Plus a €110,000 ENISA public loan and €230,000 from friends and family. Total seed: ~€360,000.

2015

First client acquired

Began building the custom billing and CRM system.

2017

Fonhouse distribution deal signed

Fonhouse (500 stores, part of Global Dominion group) begins selling Alterna contracts alongside telecoms. Revenue-share model: 50% of margin per client per month. Alterna becomes the top-selling energy product in Fonhouse stores.

2018

Global Dominion acquires 60% of Alterna — founders receive no cash

Negotiated under financial pressure (Red Eléctrica guarantee demand + rapid growth straining cash). Founders exchange 60% equity at nominal price; future buyout terms agreed. A critical mistake: no exit proceeds for founders at this point.

2018–20

Growth continues to 180,000 clients; €113M revenue in 2020

Despite COVID impact on cash collection (law banning electricity disconnections increased unpaid bills to 2% of revenue). EBITDA €4.4M on €66M revenue in 2019.

2021

Founders fired by the board

New management at Global Dominion dismisses all three founders without paying agreed share buyout. Installs a CEO from Carrefour with no energy sector experience. Legal dispute begins.

2022

Alterna loses 100,000 clients in ~12 months

New management launches poorly designed fixed-price tariffs during the European gas crisis, fails to hedge correctly. Technical energy knowledge was the 50% of the business they couldn't replace. Client base falls from 180,000 to ~80,000.

2023

Remaining 80,000 clients sold to Repsol

Alterna survives as a legal entity (ongoing litigation) but has no active customers. Fernando's stake is subject to the unresolved share buyout dispute. A court ruling is pending.

The lesson Fernando draws is not about the sector but about deal structure: the 2018 transaction was negotiated under financial pressure and produced an arrangement where the founders had no liquidity but all the operational risk. "All I ever asked was: if you want to manage it your way, that's fine — but pay me when I leave. Once I'm gone, I can't be responsible for decisions made by someone who doesn't know what a kilowatt hour is."

Frequently asked questions about Supernormal and the Spanish energy market

What is Supernormal and where are the stores?

Supernormal is an organic grocery chain in Madrid founded in 2021. Current locations include Chamberí (30 m², no café), and two larger stores with cafés generating €75–80K/month. Two additional stores are opening shortly. The target is 20 Madrid locations by 2028. All products are organic, local and sourced directly from 150+ Spanish producers. Around 150 of 1,000 SKUs are produced in-house at Supernormal's own farm and two production kitchens.

Does organic food actually taste better?

Not automatically. Organic certification restricts pesticides and chemical inputs but does not govern variety selection, harvest timing or supply chain speed — the factors that actually determine flavour. Animal products benefit more consistently from organic standards (welfare rules affect quality directly). For vegetables, organic is a positive constraint but not a flavour guarantee. A Supernormal carrot tastes better than a supermarket carrot because of variety, soil and harvest timing — not the organic label.

How does an energy retailer make money in Spain?

An energy retailer buys electricity on the wholesale market and resells it to consumers, adding a service margin. All retailers pay the same wholesale price and regulated transmission/distribution charges. Alterna operated at 15–20% gross margin on the consumer bill (vs 40–50% for incumbents). The key is scaling cheaply: Alterna served 180,000 clients with 20 staff by building a fully proprietary billing and CRM system. The business is structurally similar to SaaS — high fixed costs, near-zero marginal cost per additional customer.

Why is it risky to launch a fixed-price energy tariff?

A fixed-price tariff means the retailer guarantees a price to the customer regardless of wholesale market movements. If wholesale prices rise above the guaranteed consumer price, the retailer absorbs the difference. Without sophisticated energy purchasing and hedging expertise, a spike in wholesale prices (like the 2021–22 European gas crisis) can generate enormous losses. Alterna's post-founder management launched fixed-price products without the expertise to hedge them correctly, leading to major losses and ultimately the destruction of the business.

What is Fernando Usera's advice for first-time entrepreneurs?

Start before you have financial obligations — a mortgage, children, fixed costs. Fernando built Alterna living with his parents. He built Supernormal with a mortgage and two children. The second was significantly harder psychologically because failure had direct consequences for people he was responsible for. Starting young, with minimal obligations, means you can take more risks, dedicate more hours, and recover more easily if it doesn't work. "Do it now. Then do it again. But do it now."

⚡ Lightning round

Most recommended book?

Ética para Amador and Política para Amador by Fernando Savater — 60 pages each, extremely clear on what life is actually about. Not business books, but more useful than most.

Best purchase under €100?

A bottle of Primer Rozas from Bodega Comando G (Gredos) — €65, and one of Supernormal's best-selling wines.

Best investment you've made?

An Ironhack coding bootcamp during the Alterna years. Never became a programmer — but understanding how applications are built let me work effectively with developers for the next decade.

Habit that most improved your life?

Going to bed earlier since having children. Consistently sleeping 8 hours. "It's wonderful."

Worst advice in the startup world?

The "entrepreneur-bro" culture: the need to dress up every business with grand narratives about disruption. Entrepreneurship is starting a greengrocer or a software company — it doesn't need decoration. The decoration doesn't make the business better.

How do you want to be remembered?

As a good guy who was fun to spend time with — at dinner, having a drink, or with his kids. That's it.

🔑 Key takeaways

Organic ≠ tasty. Understand what certification actually controls. Organic certification governs inputs (pesticides, fertilisers, animal welfare) — not flavour. For vegetables, variety selection and supply chain speed matter more. For animal products, organic welfare standards do reliably produce better quality.

Vertical integration is the only way to control quality at scale. Supernormal produces ~150 of 1,000 SKUs in-house to guarantee traceability and flavour. This is operationally complex but the only honest answer to "how do I know it's good?"

An energy retailer is a SaaS business with low gross margin. All retailers pay the same wholesale and regulated costs. The differentiation is acquisition cost and operational efficiency. Alterna served 180,000 clients with 20 staff by building a fully proprietary system. Near-zero marginal cost per customer is the whole game.

Never negotiate a deal under financial pressure. The 2018 Alterna transaction was signed when the company needed cash urgently. The result was a structure where founders gave up 60% for no personal proceeds, with future buyout terms that the acquiring party later disputed. Get clean cash out when you can.

Sector knowledge is not replaceable by management skill. When Alterna's new management launched fixed-price energy tariffs without hedging expertise, the company lost 100,000 clients and was destroyed. The 50% of the business that was "just sales" depended entirely on the other 50% being run correctly.

Start before you have obligations. The same entrepreneurial leap taken at 25 (no mortgage, no children) is ten times less psychologically costly than at 35. Risk tolerance is not a personality trait — it is a function of downside consequences. Minimise them while you can.

Fernando Usera Rodés

Co-Founder · Supernormal & Alterna · Nova Founding Member 2016

Electrical engineer (ICAI, Madrid). Founded Alterna in 2014 — Spain's fastest-growing energy retailer, reaching 180,000 clients and €113M revenue with 20 office staff. Sold a 60% stake to Global Dominion in 2018; dismissed by the board in 2021 without receiving the contractually agreed share buyout (litigation ongoing). Co-founded Supernormal in 2021 with wife Inés and sister Almudena: an organic grocery chain with its own farm, two production kitchens, and a target of 20 Madrid stores by 2028. Nova founding member since 2016.

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The company that was stolen, and the organic grocery chain built in its shadow