Expansion boosts Spar Austria sales by 6.5% in 2017 | Progresiv
Spar Austria has posted gross sales revenue of 14.64 billion euros in 2017, representing an increase of 6.5% compared to the previous year. The retailer says that this growth was driven by 'strong self-expansion', as well as the acquisition of 40 Billa stores in Croatia. 
In the group's home market of Austria, sales rose by 4.6% to 6.7 billion euros. Meanwhile, its international operations, which include Italy, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia, saw turnover increase by 10% to 5.36 billion euros.
The group invested 650 million euros in its network last year, and its portfolio now includes 175 Interspar hypermarkets, 2,689 Spar and Eurospar Markets, 210 Hervis sports retailers, and 29 shopping centres.
Looking ahead, Spar Austria plans to invest a further 700 million euros in 2018, which will include a new distribution centre in Italy and further expansion abroad.
Spar Austria says that it has continued to develop its private label ranges, and now has over 5,000 products under its own brands. Sales of private-label products grew by 7.4% last year, with the low-priced S-Budget food line seeing sales growth of almost 10%, organic brand Spar Natur increasing by 20%, and the Spar Premium range was up by 29%.
In 2017, Spar Austria also launched an initiative to reduce sugar in its own brands, and earlier this month the retailer announced that it has now reduced sugar in more than 50 of its private-label products.
The retailer said that it has analysed the recipes of its own brand products, such as soft drinks, cereals, ice cream, fruit preserves, fruit bars and yoghurts, and is working on reducing sugar in an additional 300 products.
"With our own brands, we are extremely successful and up-to-date," said Gerhard Drexel, CEO of the Spar Austria group. "The share of sales we achieve with our own brands has already exceeded 40% in Austria." (www.esmmagazine.com)
