Bahrain: Waitrose increases its presence
Waitrose doubled its presence in the kingdom when it added the two Jawad outlets, the Jawad Dome at Barbar and the supermarket at Nuwaidrat to its existing outlets at The Lagoon on Amwaj Island and the Al Nakeel Centre in Saar.
While Jawad has sold both of its major supermarkets it remain a major player in retail with some 30 small supermarkets and cold stores in Bahrain and an important wholesale supplier to other supermarkets.
Jawad chairman and chief executive Faisal Jawad said they decided to sell off their investment in the supermarkets because they took advantage of a good offer.
"There is nothing to stop us going back into that market," he added.
Waitrose is now pushing ahead with increasing its presence in the kingdom and will be rebranding and refurbishing the two acquisitions it made from Jawad, said Fine Fair Food Market, which manages Waitrose's operations in Bahrain, chief executive Jannie Holtzhausen.
He said that the company had purchased the businesses outright and it was not in partnership with Jawad but was running the operations exclusively as Waitrose.
The company now has two further supermarkets in the pipeline at Riffa and Mahooz that are expected to be completed by the end of this year or early next year to take the UK retailers presence in the kingdom to six.
"The expansion will allow the company to bring its Waitrose branded products to more customers across Bahrain," he added.
Waitrose only recently cast its eye on international markets and to date has been looking to the Gulf for expansion having stores in both the UAE and Bahrain.
Waitrose Limited is the food division of the British retailer and worker co-operative the John Lewis Partnership.
It has over 243 branches across the UK and has a long-term goal of opening 400 branches across the UK by 2017 and doubling its revenue to £8 billion ($2.5bn) by 2016.
Source: www.gulf-dailynews.com
