Waitrose to open 8 new stores in Bahrain
The employees of the new stores will be trained in Dubai, according to Jannie Holtzhausen, chief executive officer of UAE-based company Fine Fare Food Market (FFFM), which manages the day-to-day operations of Waitrose stores in the region.
"Now that Waitrose have opened our second store in Bahrain, we are looking at more expansion in the future," Holtzhausen said.
"We will look at areas that are suitable and proceed accordingly."
Holtzhausen was speaking at the opening of Waitrose's second Bahrain store, close to the St Christopher school.
"We started thinking about opening in Bahrain eight years ago and our first store in Amwaj only materialised in February last year," he said. "A few times in the months gone by, we were even thinking of closing down due to the uncertainty in the situation.
"However, our board has expressed full confidence in Bahrain and, instead of closing, we have another store. We believe in the long-term stability of Bahrain."
However, he said that there would need to be changes to make the operations viable - they would now be importing directly from their suppliers and not from the Dubai operations.
"This can only happen once we have the volumes generated by more stores. We would then be more competitively priced than we are now. We need to have the critical mass to achieve that."
Bahrain's two Waitrose stores now employ 60 people, 30 per cent of them Bahrainis. "We have a programme to train all our people in-house and later send them to our home base training school in Dubai where they can gain more expertise and return."
He said the company believed in quality of its products and services. "We are known for that and that is what we have brought to Bahrain as well."
The group now has more than 200 stores worldwide, most of them in the UK. It has two in Dubai and four more are expected to open in the UAE this year.
Source: www.tradearabia.com
