Spar (retailer)

SPAR, originally "DESPAR", styled as "DE SPAR", is a Dutch multinational franchise that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932, by Adriaan van Well, and consists of 13,996 stores in 48 countries. Its headquarters are in Amsterdam. The company operates a partnership programme and has a presence in most European countries, as well as many others throughout Asia, Africa and Oceania.

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

Etymology
The name was originally DESPAR, an acronym of the Dutch phrase Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig ("Through united co-operation everyone profits equally "), which was used by Van Well to describe the brand. The acronym was chosen to resonate with the verb, which (related to English spare) means "save [money]" in Dutch and some other languages, among them German 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.

There are some international naming variants:
 * In Hungary, 17 stores owned by SPAR located at Orlen (former Lukoil) filling stations operate under the name DESPAR. However, there are also many SPAR and INTERSPAR locations.
 * In Italy, the name is still DESPAR, though in keeping with the international branding, the SPAR section of the logo is highlighted, and the larger shops are still called EuroSPAR and InterSPAR.
 * In Austria, DESPAR is SPAR's Italian food product range. There are also INTERSPAR locations within Austria.
 * In Croatia, SPAR and INTERSPAR locations run concurrently.
 * In Arabia, the Latin letters SPAR are displayed next to the Arabic سبار (sbār).
 * In Iran, it is called اسپار (Aspar).
 * In China, it is known as 斯巴超市 (Sībā chāoshì, "Siba supermarket").
 * In Ireland, Northern Ireland, Russia and Switzerland both the SPAR and EUROSPAR names are used, with EUROSPAR being used mostly for larger supermarket sized stores and SPAR for smaller convenience stores.
 * In Slovenia both SPAR and INTERSPAR are used, with INTERSPAR being used for a larger supermarket sized stores and SPAR for smaller convenience stores

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. Spar opened in Vanuatu on 1 December 2009, ending Au Bon Marché's grocery monopoly.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

In 2015, Ahold acquired all 35 hypermarkets and 14 supermarkets from Spar Czechia for more than 5.2 billion Czech koruna. 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.

SPAR opened in Saudi Arabia in 2017, sublicensed to Al-Sadhan Group 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. They opened the first store in Thalawathugoda, Colombo. The plan is to open 50 outlets in the country by 2023.

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

In 2022, SPAR International entered the Kazakhstan retail market.

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. Also in 2022, SPAR entered Latvia where by 2023 it opened 23 stores. A first Israeli Spar store was opened in 2024.

Shop types
In most, but not all countries, SPAR operates shops of different types and sub-brands: SPAR Express, SPAR Neighbourhood, EuroSPAR and InterSPAR.

EuroSPAR/SuperSPAR
The EuroSPAR name is used in Europe and SuperSPAR in South Africa. These are mid-sized supermarkets, designed to fit in a niche between convenience shops and traditional supermarkets.

InterSPAR
These are hypermarkets and compete directly against major international chains such as Real, Carrefour, and Tesco.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

International statistics (2021)

 * 48 countries
 * 255 distribution centres
 * 13,623 stores
 * €41.2 billion total sales
 * 410,000 SPAR colleagues
 * 7.5 million m2 retail sales area
 * 14.5 million customers per day

Controversies
Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine which began on February 24, many international, particularly Western, companies pulled out of Russia. Unlike most of its Western competitors, Spar has been slow to announce any disinvestments or scaling back of its operations in Russia, drawing criticism. Ukrainian government officials called for a global boycott of the company.