Spar International recently announced that it will partner with Bangchak Retail Company Ltd (BCR) in a 300-store venture in Thailand, investing €102 million in the next five years.
BCR will open seven flagship convenience and neighbourhood stores in 2016. Fifty to 70 new stores will be launched each subsequent year for the next five years, contributing 2,500 jobs to the economy.
The company expects retail sales of €260 million by 2020.
Spar Thailand will be expanding forecourt retail stores around food-purchasing 'moments', and the two retailers worked together to create detailed store designs and layouts.
Sourcing products locally will be a key focus, and Spar International is planning to develop own-brand products and has worked with BCR on the development and promotion of a national range of own-brand items.
Tobias Wasmuht, managing director of Spar International, said, "In the last decade, SPAR International has grown from strength to strength in key strategic markets of Asia. Today, we have a significant multiformat presence, including hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience and online, in China, India and Indonesia. The launch of Spar in Thailand, in partnership with BCR, represents a significant and important step forward in Spar’s ongoing expansion into Asian markets."
Spar International has over 12,100 stores worldwide and had global retail sales of €33 billion in 2015.
It announced it was opening 60 stores in Mongolia in July and recently opened two stores in Albania.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Karen Henderson. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
