SPAR International B.V.
Company typePrivate
IndustryRetail
Founded1932 (1932)
HeadquartersAmsterdam, Netherlands
Number of locations13,996 stores (worldwide, 2022)[1]
Area servedWorldwide
(48 countries as of 2022)[1]
ProductsGrocers' shops, convenience shops, discount shops, hypermarkets
Revenue €43.5 billion (2022)[1]
Number of employees460,000 (2022)[1]
Websitespar-international.com

SPAR, originally "DESPAR", styled as "DE SPAR"[2] (Dutch pronunciation: [də ˈspɑr]), is a Dutch multinational franchise that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores.[3] It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932,[4] by Adriaan van Well, although the largest number of stores are located in the United Kingdom.

Its headquarters are in Amsterdam. The company operates a partnership programme and has a presence in most European countries, as well as throughout Asia, Africa and Oceania.

In fiscal year 2022, SPAR earned €43.5 billion in global sales,[1] which represented a 5.6 percent increase over the previous year.[1]

By 2024, the group had 13,900 stores in 48 countries.[5]

Etymology

The name was originally DESPAR, an acronym of the Dutch phrase Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig[note 1] 'Through united co-operation everyone profits regularly', which was used by Van Well to describe the brand.[6] The acronym was chosen to resonate with the verb sparen, which (related to English spare) means "save [money]" in Dutch and some other languages, among them German[7] and Scandinavian languages (with variants such as spara or spare). Spar is Dutch for "spruce tree", after which the logo was chosen. As the organisation expanded across Europe, the name was abbreviated by dropping the DE prefix.[6][8]

There are some international naming variants:

History

20th century

Spar was founded in 1932 in Zegwaart, Netherlands. In 1953, an International Spar office opened in Amsterdam to manage international expansion. Spar shops can be found in Europe, Australia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Cameroon, China, and India.[22] Spar opened in Vanuatu on 1 December 2009, ending Au Bon Marché's grocery monopoly.[23]

A Spar shop may be owned independently, by a franchise, or be part of a chain, depending on the model applied in any given country. The owners of the parent company vary from country to country and may include the shop owners themselves. The name and the current logo was most recently revised in 1968 by Raymond Loewy and has since remained unchanged.[24]

In the United Kingdom, Spar was founded in 1959 and may be a supermarket or a convenience shop. In 1997, Spar was introduced to most United Kingdom military bases by the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (Naafi), where it sells a variety of civilian and military products.[25] In Ireland and Northern Ireland, the Spar brand is known for neighbourhood shops and also the subformat Eurospar acting as mini-supermarkets.

Since 1996, the company has been a major sponsor of the European Athletic Association and its events.[26]

Spar stores in the Netherlands are members of Superunie, an inventory purchasing organisation for a number of otherwise unaffiliated supermarket brands.

In 1988, SPAR South Africa became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tiger Brands, a holding company with a large diversified portfolio. It was unbundled and listed as a separate company in 2004.[27]

21st century

In July 2014, SPAR South Africa opened its first supermarket in Angola but no expansion of the brand is planned for this market. Since 2021, the group has 100% of BWG Foods, which had outlets in Ireland and southern Britain.[28]

In 2015, Ahold acquired all 35 hypermarkets and 14 supermarkets from Spar Czechia for more than 5.2 billion Czech koruna.[29] and converted them into Albert super- and hypermarkets. However, it had to divest itself of some shops in order not to have a monopoly.

The first SPAR shop in Oman was inaugurated in January 2015, in Muscat. Spar Oman had plans to open more shops over time as part of its expansion plans in Oman. Spar opened its first store in Qatar in 2017, with the second store opening in 2018. A further two stores were planned to open in 2018, but it got cancelled.[30]

SPAR opened in Saudi Arabia in 2017, sublicensed to Al-Sadhan Group [31] opening its first stores in Riyadh.

In 2017, Ceylon Biscuits Limited in Sri Lanka acquired a license to operate the Spar brand in Sri Lanka as Spar Lanka. This is a joint venture of Ceylon Biscuits Limited and SPAR South Africa.[32] They opened the first store in Thalawathugoda, Colombo. The plan is to open 50 outlets in the country by 2023.[33]

In 2020, there were more than 13,500 SPAR stores in 48 countries.[34]

In 2022, SPAR International entered the Kazakhstani retail market.[35]

In 2022, Israeli supermarket chain Shufersal announced plans to open SPAR stores in Israel; with 10 stores to be opened in the first three years of operation.[36] Also in 2022, SPAR entered Latvia where by 2023 it opened 23 stores.[37][38] A first Israeli Spar store was opened in 2024.

At the beginning of 2025, Tokmanni Oy signed a license agreement with Spar International. The granted license gives Tokmanni the exclusive right to sell Spar products and use the Spar brand in Finland.[39] In June 2025, the first Spar-branded food department was opened in the town of Ylöjärvi.[40] Before that, Spar has had stores in Finland in years 1962–1973 and 1998–2005.[39][41] In October 2025, the second SPAR store opened in the town of Masku.[42]

In February 2025, Drangar hf signed a license agreement with Spar International. Plan is to change all previous 10-11, Krambúð and Kjörbúð already operated by Samkaup in Iceland to be renamed as SPAR by end of 2027[43]

Operations

By 2024, the group had 13,900 stores in 48 countries.[5]

Number of stores per country
Country Number of stores[44] Formats
Albania 100[45] SPAR, SPAR express, INTERSPAR
Angola 38[46] SPAR, SPAR express
Australia 111[47] SPAR, SPAR express, SUPERSPAR
Austria 1511[48] SPAR, SPAR express, SPAR Gourmet, EUROSPAR, INTERSPAR, INTERSPAR Pronto, INTERSPAR Take Away
Azerbaijan 53[49] SPAR, SPAR express, SPAR Market
Belgium 317[50] SPAR, SPAR express
Botswana 71[51] SPAR, SUPERSPAR
Cameroon 16[52] SPAR, SPAR express
China 331[53] SPAR
Croatia 145[54] SPAR, INTERSPAR
Denmark 141[55] SPAR
Finland 2[56] EUROSPAR
France 702[57] SPAR, EUROSPAR
Georgia 382[58] SPAR, SPAR express
Germany 234[59] SPAR express
Hungary 652[60] SPAR, SPAR express, DESPAR, INTERSPAR
Iceland 0 Spar to open in 2026
India 24[61] SPAR, SPAR Hypermarket
Ireland 463[62] SPAR, SPAR express, EUROSPAR
Italy 1417[63] DESPAR, DESPAR express, EUROSPAR, INTERSPAR
Kazakhstan 7[64] SPAR
Kosovo 10[65] SPAR
Kyrgyzstan 7[66] SPAR
Latvia 24[67] SPAR, SPAR express
Malta 12[68] SPAR, SPAR express, EUROSPAR, INTERSPAR
Mozambique 17[69] SPAR
Monaco 1[70] SPAR
Namibia 64[71] SPAR, SPAR express, SUPERSPAR
Netherlands 418[72] SPAR, SPAR express, SPAR city, SPAR enjoy, SPAR university
Nigeria 14[73] SPAR
Norway 284[74] SPAR, EUROSPAR
Oman 28[75] SPAR
Pakistan 5[76] SPAR, SPAR express
Paraguay 1[77] SPAR
Poland 212[78] SPAR, SPAR express, EUROSPAR
Portugal 175[79] SPAR
Qatar 7[80] SPAR
Russia 203[81] SPAR, SPAR express, EUROSPAR, EUROSPAR express
Rwanda 1[82] SPAR
Saudi Arabia 15[83] SPAR, SPAR express
Seychelles 1[84] SPAR
Slovenia 159[85] SPAR, INTERSPAR
South Africa 1094[86] SPAR, KWIKSPAR, SPAR express, SUPERSPAR, SaveMor
Spain 1435[87] SPAR, SPAR express, EUROSPAR
Sri Lanka 18[88] SPAR, SPAR Supermarket
Switzerland 252[89] SPAR, SPAR express, EUROSPAR
Ukraine 118[90] SPAR, SPAR express, EUROSPAR
United Arab Emirates 12[91] SPAR, SPAR express
United Kingdom 2190[92] SPAR, SPAR express, EUROSPAR (Northern Ireland only)
Zambia 3[93] SPAR
Zimbabwe 32[94] SPAR

Store formats

In most, but not all countries, SPAR operates shops of different types and sub-brands including SPAR Express, SPAR, EuroSPAR and InterSPAR.[95]

Current store formats

EuroSPAR

The EuroSPAR name is used in Europe for mid-sized supermarkets, designed to fit in a niche between convenience shops and traditional supermarkets.[96]

INTERSPAR

INTERSPAR is an Austrian hypermarket chain founded in 1970 and owned by SPAR Austria, operating large stores ranging from 3,000 to 6,000 m² in Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia and Northeastern Italy.[97][98]

KwikSPAR

KwikSPAR, only found in South Africa, is a smaller quick stop shop for convenience, larger than the conventional SPAR Express and smaller than the normal SPAR. These stores tend to have extended trading hours, some operating as 24-hour convenience stores.

SPAR

Standard traditional supermarket format.

SPAR Express

This is the smallest type of shop. They are designed for small sites and filling station forecourts, airports and train stations.[99]

SPAR Gourmet

The Austrian Spar Group has around 50 supermarkets branded SPAR Gourmet, mainly in and around Vienna. They are smaller supermarkets that specialize in foods, with a reduced range of other household goods. They originate from the acquisition of retail units from the Julius Meinl coffee and tea chain in 2000.[100][101][102]

SUPERSPAR

The SUPERSPAR name is used in Australia, designed to fit in a niche between convenience shops and traditional supermarkets. In South Africa and Botswana, the name is used for large supermarkets.[96]

Defunct store formats

HOT SPAR

HOT SPAR was a brand of convenience stores licensed to franchisees in Japan.[103]

SPAR Drive-Thru

There was a drive-through SPAR on the Cliftonville Road in Belfast, Northern Ireland. This has now been converted to a Centra shop, and retained the drive-through for a while afterwards, but now no longer has one.[104]

See also

Notes

  1. Dutch pronunciation: [doːr eːnˈdrɑxtəx ˈsaːmə(ɱ)ʋɛrkə(m) proːfiˈteːrə(n) ˈɑlə(n) reːɣəlˈmaːtəx]

References

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  4. "Spar boss brings in Subway and Greggs to snatch grocery spend from retail giants". The Daily Telegraph. 28 November 2015. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022.
  5. "About Us". spar-international.com. 2024..
  6. "The History of SPAR". SPAR International.
  7. "Englisch-Deutsch Wörterbuch". LEO.
  8. "SPAR – Some Untold stories - Reena D Souza". 25 May 2018.
  9. "DESPAR" (in Hungarian). Lukoil Magyarország.
  10. "SPAR Italy". SPAR International.
  11. "DESPAR" (in German). SPAR Österreich.
  12. "Spar.at".
  13. "Interspar.at".
  14. "SPAR i INTERSPAR Hrvatska: mi smo tu za Vas". SPAR.hr.
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  16. عروض سبار قطر من 12 حتى 16/6/2021. العروض اون لاين. 13 June 2021.
  17. نت, تسوق (28 April 2021). عروض اليوم بفروع سبار السعودية من 28 إبريل حتى 4 مايو 2021 رمضان كريم. العروض اون لاين.
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  19. رازهای موفقیت و محبوبیت «اسپار». www.tejaratetalaeenews.ir (in Persian).
  20. 斯巴超市 （Spar）是荷蘭的一家跨國零售企業，在全世界42個國家開設有約12.500個店鋪。斯巴超市創建於1932年。現在斯巴超市已經在大部分歐洲國家，部分非洲、亞洲、大洋洲. ww.cn.freejournal.org (in Chinese).
  21. "SPAR SLOVENIJA".
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  25. "Naafi allies with Spar". The Grocer. 22 March 1997. Naafi has chosen Spar as its retail partner to convert its 200 UK shops into a "world class operation for the next millennium". The contract, worth nearly £500 million over the next five years, was awarded after extensive trials with Costcutter and Londis.
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  27. Trade Intelligence – SPAR, accessed 2 October 2010
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  40. Hallamaa, Teemu (12 June 2025). "Uusi ruokakauppaketju avasi Suomessa – näin se voi vaikuttaa hintoihin". Yle (in Finnish).
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  90. "SPAR Ukraine". SPAR International.
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  96. "Shop formats". Spar International.
  97. "The hypermarket". Aspiag.
  98. Ians (28 January 2011). "SPAR to open 24 more hypermarkets in next two years". Sify. Archived from the original on 2 March 2012.
  99. "Shop formats". Spar South Africa.
  100. "Chronologie: Von Konsum bis Rewe". Derstandard.at. 24 February 2008.
  101. "SPAR Gourmet". SPAR (in German). SPAR Österreichische Warenhandels-AG.
  102. "Julius Meinl veräußert Lebensmittelhandel an die Spar – Institution". APA-OTS Originaltext-Service (in German).
  103. Ryukyu Asahi Broadcasting (13 December 2007). ホットスパーが「COCO!」へ ["HOT SPAR" rebranded to "COCO!"] (in Japanese). Ryukyu Asahi Broadcasting. Archived from the original on 2 May 2013.
    • rough translation of relevant parts: "From next February, the convenience store chain 'HOT SPAR' will be renamed to 'COCO!'".; "[...] because the licensing contract with the Dutch firm SPAR International will expire on November next year"
  104. "Inquiry into Town Centre Regeneration". Northern Ireland Assembly Archive Site. 20 October 2009.