At SPAR, serving local communities means not only providing employment and meeting customer needs, but also supporting local producers. We highlight some of the initiatives of SPAR country organisations that empower and provide opportunities for local producers to bring their products onto the shelves of SPAR stores. This is just one topic being addressed at the Independent Retail Europe conference this week.

Growing local economies

SPAR Hungary promoted producers through its ‘Regional Treasures’ and ‘Hungaricool’ programmes. Both initiatives enable suppliers to expand their partnership networks while acquiring essential professional skills.

The fourth season of the ‘Hungaricool’ competition resulted in nine winning brands and 37 products entering the market. The initiative’s goal is to strengthen the local economy by helping local small-scale suppliers and providing customers with new, quality products that are made locally. 179 businesses entered last season’s competition, offering a total of 301 products. The production and sales of the new products create jobs for hundreds of employees, including for downstream suppliers.

Another initiative of SPAR Hungary, the Regional Treasures programme, has led to over 400 products from 86 local suppliers being available in stores across the country.

Fostering entrepreneurship

SPAR Croatia launched its fourth season of the ‘Start Croatia’ project, which supports local entrepreneurs offering “Made in Croatia” products. This socially responsible project empowers new entrepreneurs by showcasing unique products, highlighting their commitment and challenges, while offering them nationwide distribution opportunities which enhance their brand-building efforts.

This is only one way SPAR Croatia supports local producers. Over 77% of the total food range in SPAR and INTERSPAR stores in Croatia comes from domestic suppliers. These are marketed in various ways, highlighting ‘yes it’s homemade’ where appropriate and ‘Gardens of Croatia’ for fresh produce. More recently, in collaboration with producers of SPAR Own Brand products, exports of goods to neighbouring markets through SPAR led to over €143 million in sales being generated.

Another country we want to highlight that strongly supports local producers is Slovenia, where the ‘StartItUp, Slovenia!’ campaign initiated by SPAR in 2016 has seen over 200 new products developed by 52 participating teams. This not only has supported employment by growing small-scale producers but also enabled creative solutions to enter the formal retail market.

Sources: SPAR Slovenia, SPAR Croatia, and SPAR Hungary.

Read more about sourcing within SPAR here.