Spar expands to the Middle East

Plenty
of ex-pats

In
an interview with Reuters, CEO Gordon Campbell revealed that “Our focus will be on a range of fresh foods and the convenience of food
to go and food to stay, with a seating area in the compact stores”
Some stores will also have restaurants, as well as ready-made meals
to consume along the way or at home.

The Emirates’ market is already highly competitive, but “Wherever we
go, they say the market is saturated. The reality is the food market
is evolving always with new ideas and concepts,” Campbell asserts.
The Emirates are crowded with ex-pats, many of whom already are
familiar with the Spar formula.

Spar hopes to realize a turnover of 750 million euro in the Middle East
within five to ten years. Total turnover in 2012 will add up to
roughly 31 billion euro, which is 4.5 percent higher than the year
before. The company expects a sales figure of 37 billion by 2015.

A
Dutch cooperative

Spar
was founded in 1932 as a formula of Dutch independent retailers and
now joins together 320 stores in the Netherlands. In addition, some
smaller franchises carrying the name Attent and several neutral shops
are part of the Spar Holding as well, adding up to a total of some
600 stores in the Netherlands.

Spar
is itself partly (for 45%) owned by Sperwer and partly (for another
45%) by the Sligro Food Group. The Belgian supermarket chain Colruyt
acquired a license for the Spar brand in 2003 for shops in Belgium and
Luxemburg via its subsidiary Spar Retail. Another Belgian company,
Lambrechts, also has a license for the Spar brand.

From
supermarkt to sports chain

Further
from home, Spar is successful in
Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovenia with supermarkets
and the Hervis chain of sport stores. In some countries they also own
Euro Spar as well as Interspar stores.

The
total number of stores carrying the name Spar exceeds the number of
12,000 in 34 countries. Among them South Africa, where Spar is one of
the greatest supermarket chains in that country with both large
supermarkets (above 4000 sqm) and smaller stores (of about 400 sqm).