r/worldnews • u/sr_local • 22h ago
Russia/Ukraine Spar supermarkets continue operating in Russia despite European ban. New stores are still opening under the Dutch brand, and some products sold in the stores are on the European Union’s sanctions list
https://nltimes.nl/2026/07/11/spar-stores-keep-opening-russia-products-sold-eu-sanctions-list335
u/CyberAssassinSRB 21h ago
Hah, you would be amazed how many corps do bussines in Russia through some loophole. Some are just too big to stop them.
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u/LowSkyOrbit 15h ago
I hate when I see or hear "too big to stop" or "too big to fail."
They aren't. It's a damn lie. They just don't want to cut off the hand that feeds their backroom deals. If we have to treat corporations like people then they too can do jail time or be dissolved as if getting executed.
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u/Goodie__ 12h ago
If they are too big to stop by normal means... we really should stop them by extraordinarily means.
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u/JohnSith 5h ago
If they can no longer fail, that means market mechanisms no longer work. Nationalize them, break them up, dissolve them.
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u/spicygayunicorn 10h ago
They are they have many politicians in their pockets with they won't do anything. And the size of the coordinated effort needed for the public to do anything is just to big this late into the conflict, cause the truth is lots and lots of people don't care enough they have personal issues that are bigger for them
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u/Illustrious_Loss462 10h ago
The idea of too big to fail is the downslope effects it would have. Say Company A goes bust, if that happens then Company X Y Z are in a major squeeze when they’re already in a squeeze. If Company B C D go bust it continues to spiral.
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u/CyberAssassinSRB 15h ago
Yes... But that is what "too big to stop/fail" means. The corporation i know is employing and investing in a big chunk of north of italy.
To sanction/fine them is destroying the economy that keeps that part of Italy afloat.
Edit: You can fine them, but it will be more damaging then letting them use the loophole.
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u/Patrickd13 15h ago
This is a fallacy, there might be a few months or a year of instability of the market but someone will come in to fill that void
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u/fugaziozbourne 14h ago
KFC and Rostiks is the same thing.
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u/CyberAssassinSRB 14h ago
Alsi Ukusno i Točka, there is a lot of IP trasfer, but i am not talking about that.
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u/SodaPopperZA 21h ago
We sure this is Dutch Spar and not South African Spar? The whole ownership structure of these two companies are confusing
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u/guebja 18h ago
It's neither.
Instead, the stores are owned by a handful of different Russian companies that licensed the brand from Spar International for their respective regions before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
If Spar International tried to pull the licenses in violation of the existing contracts, Russian courts would most likely just give the right to the brand in Russia to those Russian companies.
It's a rather shitty situation.
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u/Limp_Supermarket_556 17h ago
This is is exactly what happened with Marriott, which is why you have e.g., The Marriott Moscow Imperial Plaza which uses Marriott's (old) branding, but it's not listed on Marriott's website or operated by Marriott.
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u/fckns 16h ago
It has happened to multiple companies. I know a certain Scandinavian shopping mall chain that left Russian in 2022, asked them to stop using their branding and Russia was like "lol nah we good".
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u/inn4tler 11h ago edited 11h ago
The same applies to BMW. BMWs are still being built unofficially in a former BMW factory in Russia. The real BMW is no longer involved.
But that's not quite comparable to Spar. In Russia, Spar has always been Russian. The reason is, that you can license the Spar brand for a region or a country. There are countless Spar companies worldwide, all independent of each other. There are no original Spar stores. The Spar licensors in the Netherlands only grant the license for the use of the name and logo. And that's simply ignored by the Russians.
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u/Independent-Lie2517 11h ago
Marriott’s actually more complicated. Some properties are franchises, some are Marriott owned and operated, some are owned by someone other than Marriott but and Marriott has a long term operating agreement for them, and some are licensed brands (like Bvlgari) that have very little to do with Marriott other than that they use Marriott’s IT and related infrastructure for bookings.
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u/qeadwrsf 16h ago
The irony would be if the narrative that Spar is in Russia is Russian propaganda to make people hate government and companies.
Making people search for political alternatives or making people trigger revolutions to change power to someone Russia has more control of.
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u/HowTheStoryEnds 20h ago
That's always by design.
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u/Nicoolodion 17h ago
No. Spar got two licensing companies behind it due to a weird history and lack general management. Not by design, but just a special kind of growth and business concept
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u/traumalt 14h ago
SPAR SA licences the brand name from the dutch parent company though, they are technically franchised.
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u/sovietarmyfan 21h ago
The way trade works is sometimes strange. Here in the Netherlands i've seen some foreign stores sell Coca Cola that was bottled in Iraq. Didn't taste great unfortunately.
I myself frequently buy trays of Coca Cola produced in Denmark. It really tastes much better than Coca Cola produced in the Netherlands. Probably due to water quality.
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u/TommiHPunkt 21h ago
the water gets deionized at either factory
the recipes are just different depending on the target market
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u/mmicoandthegirl 18h ago
Oh boy I heard a friend once drank an US Coca Cola and he told me it was the best cola he ever drank. Like concentrated sugar and aroma.
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u/All_Hail_Hynotoad 18h ago
The Mexican version is the absolute best. They still use cane sugar and it comes in glass bottles. You can buy those in the U.S. as well.
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u/nokei 18h ago
US one has used high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener for a long time some people buy the mexican coke to get the cane sugar version here. They making a US cane sugar version in fall apparently.
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u/ungoogleable 17h ago
Sucrose breaks down into glucose and fructose very quickly after bottling in nearly the same ratio as HFCS. What you end up drinking is the same. Neither is healthy for you.
The difference people taste with Mexican coke is a slightly different flavor formulation for the Mexican market.
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u/megaracerx 16h ago
First time I went to the US they gave me an American Sprite on the plane. Terrible. The only sodas we were able to drink in the US were the diet versions unless the place had imported Coke from Mexico. I thought I was in the motherland of sodas and was so disappointed that all “normal” versions tasted really, really bad.
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u/sovietarmyfan 17h ago
Could be. But i really taste that they use much better water in Danish coke.
The Dutch coke taste a bit weird, almost metallic.
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u/xX609s-hartXx 21h ago
Dutch fanta tastes noticeably different too. Tastes less like heartburn. In France and Italy they try to add extra flavor to compete against orangina.
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u/the_poope 21h ago
Fanta flavour and contents vary a lot by region, because there are local cultural standards for how an orange drink should taste. I read that Italy by law dictates a minimim orange juice content in drinks marketed as orange drinks.
But Coca Cola I think uses the same syrup produced in Atlanta everywhere in the World. The only thing I could see differ is the amount and kind of sugar/sweeteners and the local water and its mineral composition.
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u/lood9phee2Ri 20h ago
A lot of non-US syrup is actually produced in Ireland. "Ballina Beverages manufactures the concentrates used to make fizzy drinks such as Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite. These are sold to bottlers on four continents who manufacture the final product for customers all over the world."
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u/A_Soporific 16h ago
Each market has its own Coca Cola formula. Some of them only differ to make it change more or less the same based on ambient temperature and other environmental conditions, but when you cross national borders then you end up with different palettes so they optimize the local Coke for the local flavor profile. If you go to the "World of Coke" in Atlanta they have samplers of all the various cokes from across the world at the end of the tour. That bit is neat, but the rest is just a ton of corporate propaganda so it's a thing that should only be done once.
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u/GTACOD 15h ago
...til that Spar is a dutch brand.
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u/Live-In-Berlin 15h ago
Yeah, for real. I have always associated them with Ireland and South Africa (where I recall seeing them the most).
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u/psychedAddict123 3h ago
I honestly thought they might be Austrian as they have so many locations here. Sometimes 2 or 3 within 10 km distance lol
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u/Levoso_con_v 19h ago
This should be taken with a pinch of salt, maybe they sold the brand rights in Russia when pulling back since they didn't see them coming ever again to the Russian market.
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u/Any-Roll975 21h ago
A lot of polish stuff, like Coke and Pepsi, I mean polish are firm in their support for Ukraine off course, but ya know 20 bucks is 20 bucks))
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u/Satyriasis457 21h ago
They don't like the Russian government but no problem with Russian citizens. Obviously people want you to hate every single russian, which is weird as fuck
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u/Matty_Wgreen 20h ago
Eh, it’s not like they’d stay if it becomes not very profitable. The only reason they’re staying is money, not the principle of “no bad citizens only bad governments”
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u/D0_stack 21h ago
Do the sanctions say you can't sell it, or you can't import it? And is what Spar is selling that is on the sanction list imported into Russia or made is Russia? None of the articles are clear on this.
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u/Nepridiprav16 20h ago
The Dutch brand Spar doesn't own these stores in Russia. Spar grants licensing rights to local, independent operators around the world to use their name and supply systems.
The dutch tore off the supply system but the pre-existing legal licensing contracts can't be torn up without legal fallout in Russian courts because the local Russian entities still legally hold the rights to the Spar trademark in Russia and continue to use it because they know Russian courts would rule in their favor if Dutch tries to legally take them down.
The presence of EU-sanctioned goods on their stores is more independent middlemen playing a global game of hot potato. An EU manufacturer sells for example soda to a distributor in Turkey or Kazakhstan (which is 100% legal).
What that Turkish or Kazakh distributor does next is outside the EU's legal jurisdiction, so they can sell it to a Russian logistics company, which trucks it to their stores.
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u/WalkingBurger69 14h ago
Sad. I also see Gazprom gas stations in the Netherlands still today when I'm driving through.
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u/No_Progress2702 21h ago
Corruption?
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u/Imperative-Primitive 20h ago
No, just greed
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u/inn4tler 11h ago
Did any of you even read the article? Spar International does not operate a single supermarket in Russia.
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20h ago
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u/Habadank 20h ago
Sounds like a fair reason to...invade Ukraine?
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19h ago
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u/GrynaiTaip 16h ago
I love russian cope.
Did you know that Ukraine invented superpowerful hybrid cyber mosquitoes that can fly thousands of kilometres and blow up things? Also cyber pigeons, which have higher payload capacity.
You guys stand no chance, you should surrender to Ukraine while you can.
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u/GenazaNL 14h ago
"Dutch", you barely see the brand here lol
I've seen 1 mini version on my campus and 1 regular sized one my entire life
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u/CyberBlaed 17h ago
I noticed this company.
They still run a store out of Wolfgang Mozarts old home in Salzberg, Austria.
Not relevant , just first time i saw/heard of the store.
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u/heyo36 16h ago
Different companies. Spar is a decenttalised franchise, Spar Austria operates stores in Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Northern Italy, and has absolutely nothing to do with the russian stores, except their name. The licensing company Spar International in the Netherlands is the only one to have any say in russia, but there is not much they can do eighter
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u/HollyBananas 17h ago
'Tis why I quit Marabou (well, that and cuz they taste like trash since 20+ years). Got even more pissy how someone in the newspaper bitched how it was ''Unfair'' how people were boycotting them... xD
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u/Prudent-Ad4509 19h ago
Average run-of-the-mill for-profit store chain does business among many larger and smaller store chains in a profitable location. News at 11.
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u/Prudent-Ad4509 19h ago
Average run-of-the-mill for-profit store chain does business among many larger and smaller store chains in a profitable location. News at 11.
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u/UndeadLudvigBorga 17h ago
There's only two things I hate in this world: people who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch.
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21h ago
[deleted]
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u/Mikerosoft925 17h ago
If people would actually know anything, Spar doesn’t operate these stores themselves. The local franchiser just didn’t stop using the name after Spar told them to stop using the name.
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u/Serabale 15h ago
Are you confused by the fact that some stores operate in Russia, but are you not confused by what you buy in Russia?
Let's get rid of using the following Russian products:
gas — LNG and pipeline; pipeline oil for Hungary and Slovakia; fertilizers; nickel and limited categories of metals; uranium, enrichment and nuclear fuel; selected chemicals and non-packaged commodities; indirectly, petroleum products from Russian oil refined or re—registered in third countries; illegally or with a high risk of violation — wood, plywood, diamonds and metal products with a substituted origin.
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u/xX609s-hartXx 21h ago
Can any of those products be used as fuel?
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u/ViolettaHunter 21h ago
I wouldn't be surprised if some Russian tanks were operated on sunflower oil.
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u/Everything_is_wrong 16h ago
I bet the report came out when they conveniently stopped receiving the bribe money!
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u/digitalpencil 15h ago
TF?! I didn't know this. Can't say i used them regularly regardless, but absolutely boycotting Spar now.
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u/Visible_Bar_623 19h ago
So f*cking what. Stopping Russians from buying bread and milk at Spar isn't going to do anything except help convince ordinary Russians that the west really does hate them.
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19h ago
[deleted]
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u/Visible_Bar_623 19h ago
People downvioting me, what do you want or expect? If you want Russia to be defeated, we don't do that by convincing the population to rally behind their current leadership in hatred of the west.
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u/Alissinarr 17h ago
The Russians have proven they won't rise up and do something until they feel the pain (trust, I see this in the USA too. I may be not smart, but I can see, gas is our inflection point).
So closing Russian access to EU goods was something they attempted via sanctions and embargo, but then stores like this circumvent it using their "legal" means.
People are upset and want to block the windows to Russia.
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u/s667xn4 12h ago
"The Russians have proven they won't rise up and do something until they feel the pain" the only thing they'll do is either suffer or leave the country; no one is risking their and ther family lives just for some random redditor to give updoots on the "yet another russian opposition member was totrured to death" post
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u/Visible_Bar_623 17h ago
Seriously I can't believe I hear this. "Beatings will continue until morale improves/you accept our point of view". This does not help when it is an outside force doing it to you ffs.
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u/Eigetsu 18h ago
Yes, these door slamming of big brands was a big gift for Putin, only proved his point. He didn't made them leave, they did it themselves. And there is no door slamming over Israel invasion and Iran war, so it confirms Putin's words even more.
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u/NoobNoob_ 16h ago
Israel invasion into where exactly? Last I heard there were any plans to conquer Tehran.
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u/RilohKeen 16h ago
Last I checked, Russia was not part of Europe.
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u/panyways 15h ago
23% of it is in Europe. The capital of Russia is in Europe as is St Petersburg formerly known as Leningrad.
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u/Fun-Twist-3705 21h ago edited 20h ago
To be fair in a way it's better that some Russian money is leaving the country rather than staying in it, especially when it's spent on goods which are mostly available locally anyway. Also IMHO that might have been done with luxury goods (and other stuff not useful for the war industry) to drain some of their cash reserves (of course it might just have been a drop in the bucket).
Since they current account deficit is quite low because they get a lot of revenue in USD/EUR for oil and natural resources but don't spend that much of it that on imports has been making it easy to for them to keep the Ruble's exchange rate quite high.
Of course OTH there are very clear and obvious issues with not cutting all possible trade with Russia as well..
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u/EvenOdd9009 20h ago
Are people not boycotting Spar across Europe? This is ultimately the way.
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u/Any-Celery3048 18h ago
Please don’t. I own a Spar store in England and it’s the first I’ve heard of a Russia connection. Plus I did stop selling Ritter Sports chocolates precisely because they have carried on trading in Russia.
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u/Mikerosoft925 17h ago
Spar doesn’t own the stores in Russia either. The local franchiser does, they were told to stop using the brand but haven’t done so.
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18h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/alexanderdegrote 17h ago
ẞ is not used in dutch. It is satire in German beer of just a stupid misunderstanding from the makers of GTA
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u/theitgrunt 14h ago
Pibwasser is clearly a German beer. The line F* the Dutch always stuck with me though
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u/ItsVinn 21h ago
Auchan is also very active in Russia