# Spinneys



## Lanason (Sep 1, 2009)

Did you know:-

The supermarket was founded by Englishman, Arthur Rawdon Spinney (CBE), who, having served in the Staffordshire Yeomanry and later on the staff of General Allenby, set up operations in the suburbs of Alexandria, Egypt in 1924, which initially formed and organized the provision department of the Palestine Railways.

Before 1960 Spinneys grew into a chain and succeeded in opening additional retail outlets in Palestine and Jordan and supplying food for petrol exploration teams across the Gulf region.

In 1967, the success story continued and this time Spinneys opened the first department store in Lebanon, in Jnah Beirut, but unfortunately the store closed in the early 70’s due to the civil war at that time.

Thirty years later, Spinneys pioneered the concept of a hypermarket in Lebanon and re-opened its doors in 1998 through a big store in Dbayeh followed by 6 other standalone outlets in addition to the regional expansion in Egypt, Qatar, Jordan and UAE. 

Spinneys opened its first store in Egypt in 2007 in City Stars. The expansion accelerated, and by 2010 two more stores opened in Hurgada and Mall of Arabia, providing customers with great value and best service.

:clap2::clap2::clap2:


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## Lanason (Sep 1, 2009)

Carrefour is French :eyebrows::eyebrows::eyebrows:
Metro is German I think - but stand to be corrected


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## Whitedesert (Oct 9, 2011)

Lanason said:


> Carrefour is French :eyebrows::eyebrows::eyebrows:
> Metro is German I think - but stand to be corrected


Metro is local (Egyptian owned) and registered. There are Metro's in other countries, but not the same company. Carrefour is a French brand, but locally franchised, so also local owned.


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## Liralen (Sep 15, 2010)

Well.. that rather explains why the Carrefour here.. is a distant shadow of the ones I know in other countries, but regardless, good to have it here.


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## Whitedesert (Oct 9, 2011)

Liralen said:


> Well.. that rather explains why the Carrefour here.. is a distant shadow of the ones I know in other countries, but regardless, good to have it here.


That would be your view Liralen, but remember the owners will customise to local demand (not minority needs), and in that respect you will not always be satisfied. You must have noticed the huge supply of Ghee on the shelves, (Ugggh can you imagine consuming that much animal fat!) The Carrefour at Dandy Mall is actually quite good, but of cause I dont have the same expectations of it as I would of the one in Doha, where the majority of expatriates accounting for more than 70% of the local polulation is Asian (guess what happens? there is a lot of asian stuff, two full isles of Rice, in 25Kg bags!) However, it has fresh (1st grade) veggies and fruit straight from Europe every day by plane, which does not happen in Cairo, but costs more!


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## Lanason (Sep 1, 2009)

In fact Spinneys is owned by an Arab investment company, but started by an Englishman

Metro - origins local - owned local
Carefour - origins French - owned local
Spinneys - origins English - owned by Arabs


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

I remember Carrefour opening. There is a vast difference in how it is run from then to now. I suspect it is because the French are no longer constantly there checking up on their name


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## Whitedesert (Oct 9, 2011)

MaidenScotland said:


> I remember Carrefour opening. There is a vast difference in how it is run from then to now. I suspect it is because the French are no longer constantly there checking up on their name


 In terms of most fanchise agreements QA is supposed to happen. I always though, for instance that the big Mac always did that with there franchises world-wide (you know the cardboard tasting burger had to be just like this, and the ingredients just like that), but here in Egypt even the Big M burgers are not quite like they are supposed to be. Also applies to Burger King. I would have thought you could apply rigid fanchise QA to fast food, but clearly not the case over here. Strangely enough is it pretty much spot on in Lebanon, the GCC states etc


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

It's the same with the Grand Hyatt.. the Saudi owner was summoned to the USA and told the brand name would be taken off him if he did not sell alcohol.. that is why you now have those six chairs in a corner that you can drink alcohol.


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## CAIRODEMON (Sep 18, 2011)

Whitedesert said:


> In terms of most fanchise agreements QA is supposed to happen. I always though, for instance that the big Mac always did that with there franchises world-wide (you know the cardboard tasting burger had to be just like this, and the ingredients just like that), but here in Egypt even the Big M burgers are not quite like they are supposed to be. Also applies to Burger King. I would have thought you could apply rigid fanchise QA to fast food, but clearly not the case over here. Strangely enough is it pretty much spot on in Lebanon, the GCC states
> 
> etc


Yes that's right. I was CFO of a Saudi group which was awarded the MacDonalds franchise for Western Province in the very early 1990's. It was a chastening experience for an arrogant young man like myself, being told what to do by a group of equally arrogant young men.

The terms are tough. There is a high one-off franchise acquisition fee then a 3% annual payment, which is based upon sales not net profit, so very little room for creative accounting! You are presented with a choice of three "restaurant" plans and you have to use an approved contractor. As far as the running of the place goes, everything but everything has to be bought from a list of approved vendors, most of whom were not trading in KSA at the time. This did not just apply to meat, veg etc but to the cardboard boxes used to hold the chips. You felt like telling them to go and s**** themselves, but they would just laugh and say that if you guys do not want to do it there are plenty more out there--and they were right.

In addition the owner and senior management have to go to Chicago for a week to attend the "Hamburger University". I enjoyed the week out of KSA and actually did learn how to fry a decent burger and cook good chips. 

Because of the above, we never made a profit, but I believe that the food was fairly standard. BTW we were not allowed to use Ronald MacDonald (worshipping graven idols etc!) but Jeddah was never short of clowns anyway


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## JochenvW (Jan 9, 2012)

QA is quite difficult in Egypt. A franchisee of a major burger chain once told me that he got an QA visit and they criticised the French fries. So he told them: “your supplier doesn’t supply French fries at the moment. Do you want me to close or sell what I can get?”
Apparently a lot of F&B providers have serious sourcing problems at the moment down to shortages of table water.


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## JochenvW (Jan 9, 2012)

Whitedesert said:


> Metro is local (Egyptian owned) and registered. There are Metro's in other countries, but not the same company.


The German Metro Group is in Egypt but after loosing a court case concerning their brand name use the makro brand in Egypt for two cash and carry markets.


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