Eye on Retail
EUROSPAR... NORTHERN IRELAND’S FAST GROWING RETAIL BRAND
At a time when many supermarket chains are reducing their store numbers, EUROSPAR ranks as Northern Ireland’s fastest-growing brand....by a distance.
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“W
e’re looking at 7% annual growth and that shows no signs of slowing up,” says Mark McCammond, Retail Director at Henderson Group and the man leading the 76 SPAR and EUROSPAR outlets owned and operated by the company itself. The Group also supplies a network of more than 350 outlets run by independent retailers. McCammond looks after the running of the company-owned
estate and also works alongside Henderson Group’s Sales & Marketing Director Paddy Doody on the Ulster Guild of SPAR, made up of key directors and retailers from the network. “EUROSPAR has been here as a brand for 15 years,” he explains. “But it has seen rapid expansion in the last 12 months or so with the opening of nine new stores across Northern Ireland. The first two EUROSPARs opened in Bangor and Warrenpoint in 2000 and since
then the Group has expanded in line with changes in consumer shopping behaviour. “With the EUROSPAR brand, we’re talking about shops between 5,000 sq. ft and 10,000 sq.ft....small supermarkets rather than convenience stores, in other words,” says Mark McCammond. “These are outlets with 6,000 or 7,000 product lines rather than the 3,000 which would normally be stocked in a SPAR convenience store.