The first Coto supermarket was opened in the city of Mar de Ajó in La Costa Partido in 1987.

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.

The company opened five shopping malls from the late 1990s onwards (each anchored by a Coto hypermarket), beginning with those in Lanús and Temperley, as well as a wholesale distribution and production center in Monte Grande.

[7] The Coto group enjoys a 17% market share nationwide (reaching 28% in the metro Buenos Aires area), and operates 95 supermarkets, 16 hypermarkets, 5 shopping malls, 3 slaughterhouses, the distribution center,[8] a digital specialized division[9] and a logistics unit of 183 trucks.