SPAR was founded in 1932 by Adrian van Well in the Netherlands as DESPAR, which is the acronym for the slogan “Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig” which means “Everyone will benefit from strong cooperation”.
A chain was thus born whose objective was to ensure cooperation between independent retailers and wholesalers, as a response to the growth of supermarket chains in Europe. Adrian van Well chose the fir tree as the symbol to identify the chain, which means SPAR in Dutch, and which remains the company’s logo to this day. The growing success of SPAR in the countries where it is present and the interest shown in new countries is proof of the relevance of the SPAR business model in modern food retail.