SPAR Netherlands has acquired a majority stake in The Tosti Club, a premium grilled sandwich chain with eleven branches nationwide. The Tosti Club already features as an instore food-to-go offering at SPAR stores in Arnhem and Zwolle.

With this acquisition, SPAR is growing its market share in the foodservice industry considerably. According to SPAR Netherlands CEO John van der Ent, “the acquisition of The Tosti Club is a logical step to speed up our foodservice business and to further enhance the convenience offering at SPAR stores. The Tosti Club’s sandwiches are of high quality, and they are also a typical Dutch product. They may well become one of our signature products.”

SPAR’s convenience proposition responds to changing consumer behaviour. While people used to have three meals a day, smaller meals are now being consumed six times a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner with three moments for a snack in between.

SPAR already offers customers a variety of convenient solutions for breakfast and lunch.

“The various ingredients that are used for Tosti Club’s sandwiches make it easier for us to improve our lunch and evening meal offering. We want our customers to experience the same convenience in shopping for their evening meals as they already do for breakfast and lunch”, says John van der Ent.

SPAR intends to roll out The Tosti Club within its store portfolio but also develop other foodservice concepts. According to John van der Ent, SPAR has already acquired considerable experience with the grilled sandwich module at SPAR stores in Zwolle and Arnhem over the past years.

Customer favourites
The Tosti Club opened its first branch in Breda in 2015. The company offers premium grilled sandwich with a special bread made of windmill-ground flour cut into 18mm thick slices.

One of the most popular sandwiches on the menu is the traditional ham-cheese toast. However, other recipes are also gradually becoming consumer favourites. These include an Asian-style grilled sandwich with peanut sauce, chicken breast, sambal chilli sauce, and soybean sprouts, as well as a Spanish one with matured cheese, Serrano ham, pine nuts, and sun-dried tomatoes. The Tosti Club currently has branches in Arnhem, Breda, Den Bosch, Leeuwarden, Middelburg, Nijmegen, Nuland, Rotterdam, and Zwolle.

SPAR recently announced worldwide retail sales of €37.1 billion for 2019, generated from more than 13,320 SPAR stores. In Western Europe, SPAR’s growth amounted to 3.57% with retail sales of €22.9 billion. In the Netherlands SPAR grew its turnover by 22.8%. This strong result is produced by SPAR Netherlands’ multi-format expansion strategy at a national level.

The owner of The Tosti Club, Jacco Heijkoop, has responded positively to the share sale. “This agreement gives us the opportunity to accelerate our growth in the Netherlands. This could only be achieved by partnering with a major player like SPAR, which is growing as ambitiously as we are”, says Jacco Heijkoop.

Enriching the Dutch food retail landscape
SPAR Netherlands has continued to enrich the Dutch food retail landscape throughout 2020 with a growing store network in a range of formats, including several convenience-oriented SPAR city stores. More on SPAR Netherlands’ recent developments in this area can be found in the latest edition of SPAR International’s quarterly publication, Contact International.

Source: SPAR Netherlands

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About SPAR Netherlands

The SPAR Brand was founded in the Netherlands in 1932 by the Dutch wholesaler, Adriaan van Well and 16 independent retailers. It was established as a voluntary chain of grocers under the name DESPAR – an acronym of a slogan created by van Well to describe the organisation: Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig, which translates in English to All benefit from joint co-operation. By the end of the 1950s, SPAR was the largest food organisation in the Netherlands.

The Head Office and Distribution Centre (DC) are located in Waalwijk, from where support is provided for the almost 400 stores in operation.