Italian discount giant Eurospin plans 12 stores in Malta

One of Italy’s supermarket giants is about to launch five new stores in Malta, with plans for 12 stores in total, making it yet another addition to the island’s long line of mass retail operations.

Low-cost giant Eurospin will be providing robust competition to such favourites as Lidl, the other discount retail giant.

With over 1,000 supermarkets in Italy and 62 in Slovenia, Malta will be Eurospin’s second overseas market. It currently has over 7,000 employees.

In 2016 the brand had 33% of the discount goods market in Italy.

Founded in 1993, the brand is also active in the travel market.

According to a brochure seen by MaltaToday, the company is planning to have 12 stores in total.

The last major retail group to enter the Maltese market was SPAR International, which partnered with the Azzopardi Group. SPAR is the world’s largest food retail chain with over 12,777 stores in 48 countries and overall sales of up to €34.5 billion. SPAR was prospecting a total of 23 stores by 2025, including two INTERSPAR Hypermarkets, four large-format SPAR Supermarkets, and 17 SPAR neighbourhood stores.

Almost half of the respondents in a MaltaToday survey on supermarkets in 2016 chose the discount giant Lidl as their first store of choice, followed by 15% who mentioned Pavi in Qormi and 11% who prefer Smart supermarket in Birkirkara.

Other popular supermarkets were the new Pama supermarket in Mosta, and the Scotts chain, both mentioned by 8% of respondents.

The survey suggested that Lidl was more popular among those with a secondary level of education. Among this category of respondents, 52% mentioned Lidl as one of the supermarkets from where they buy most goods.

But Lidl also appeals to respondents with a university level of education, 40% of whom also mentioned Lidl.

The survey also suggested that respondents with less income are more likely to shop from Lidl. In fact, while only 30% of ABs (professionals and managers) shop from Lidl, the percentage rises to 60% among C2s (skilled workers).

Although Lidl is the most popular supermarket, 63% of respondents who shop from Lidl also shop from other supermarkets. This suggests that Lidl is complementing existing supermarkets. In fact, 33% of shoppers who mentioned Pavi also shop at Lidl, while 47% of shoppers who mentioned Smart also shop at Lidl.

Lidl, which operates over 10,000 stores across Europe, was awarded a €13 million loan from the European Investment Bank to commence its operations in Malta back in 2005.