Sourcing essential protective materials
SPAR International is centrally sourcing essential resources – such as protective clothing including facemasks, gloves, aprons, and disinfectants and sanitisers – to be deployed internationally to support the welfare and safety of our colleagues and customers in SPAR stores around the world.
Individual SPAR country needs are collated centrally, and through our extensive international SPAR country operations and supplier network, these essential resources are being coordinated and distributed as they become available.
As the first country to implement decisive measures to reduce the spread of the virus, China offers key learnings on dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. SPAR Partners in China have successfully continued to serve customers amid measures by the authorities that had a dramatic impact on business operations, making their strategies valuable learnings as the outbreak continues to affect other regions. Working in close support of SPAR China as well as our international suppliers, we have secured stock and are providing guidance on essential kits per store.
Acting in solidarity with their European colleagues, SPAR Shandong located in Northern China has kindly donated 100,000 face masks and 100,000 gloves, which shall be distributed to SPAR stores throughout Europe. SPAR Guangdong in southern China has also donated facemasks and acted very quickly to airfreight these to Europe as the outbreak intensified.
Better Together
At SPAR, we are a family. A global family of retailers who choose to work together around the world, to support each other, to pull together and particularly in these present challenging times of the COVID-19 outbreak, this call of solidarity and partnership has never been stronger.
Despite the enormous challenges we face today, we are confident that we shall prevail and come through this crisis even stronger and better together.
Source: SPAR International
