At the end of 2022, Dr Gerhard Fritsch, who has been with SPAR Austria for 36 years and has very successfully led SPAR Austria’s Marketing department since 2004, will be succeeded by Jörg Pizzera on 1 January 2023. After holding different positions in food production, the graduate economist most recently worked as Senior Marketing Director at McDonald's Europe.

Jörg Pizzera studied Economics in Graz with a focus on marketing and business controlling. After graduating, he held various top management positions for leading international companies over the years. Jörg Pizzera has received several awards and was Marketer of the Year in Austria in 2017.

Dr Gerhard Fritsch has received many personal awards and numerous prizes for extremely successful marketing initiatives during his career at SPAR. Already in 2008, he was Marketer of the Year in Austria, and in 2021 he received the Marketing Leader Lifetime Achievement Award from the Marketing Club and was awarded the ADGAR as Print Advertiser of the Year, to name just a few.

Gerhard Fritsch is also significantly involved in the development of successful store concepts. He is responsible for the product management of own brands and exclusive brands, which has helped to increase the sales share of SPAR own brands to 40%. He also successfully led the transition to digital marketing in SPAR.

Source: SPAR Austria

Read more about SPAR Austria.

The origins of SPAR in Austria date back to 1954, but the current SPAR AG was created in 1970 when the original founding families joined other regional wholesalers to form SPAR Austria AG – a 100% privately owned Austrian company.

With licences granted by SPAR International, ASPIAG (Austria SPAR International AG) has developed the brand in Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, and Northern Italy. With sales of €8.3 billion and impressive growth of 16%, SPAR Austria became the market leader in the Austrian grocery trade in 2020, after being a market growth leader for over a decade. It maintained this leadership position in 2021.