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.[23] Spar opened in Vanuatu on 1 December 2009, ending Au Bon Marché's grocery monopoly.[24]
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.[25]
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.[26] 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.[27]
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.[28]
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.[29]
In 2015, Ahold acquired all 35 hypermarkets and 14 supermarkets from Spar Czechia for more than 5.2 billion Czech koruna[30] 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.[31]
