Foreign supermarkets rise in popularity in the Netherlands

Jumbo, Albert Heijn and Dirk do not always have the right ingredients one is looking for, but one of the many foreign supermarkets in the Netherlands may. Foreign supermarkets have been on the rise in recent years, a study by the KVK showed.

The number of foreign grocery stores increased by eleven percent in the past five years to 819 stores across the Netherlands. In total, there are around 6,500 grocery stores in the Netherlands.

“Customers are really specifically looking for something specific that you can’t or can hardly find in standard supermarkets”, spokesperson of the Research Center for Independent Businessowners Theo Urselmann said.

Especially, Polish and Surinamese grocery stores gained popularity with a 45 and 24 percent growth respectively in terms of the number of stores in the past five years.

Given that products in foreign supermarkets are hard to find elsewhere, customers do not seem to mind traveling slightly further. This means that foreign supermarkets have to worry less about their location when setting up their business than national brands. “The investment for the entrepreneur is, therefore, relatively low”, Urselmann said.

The most foreign supermarkets can be found in Zuid-holland with 211 stores, followed shortly by Noord-Holland with 207. That supermarkets are mainly found in the Randstad is not surprising, according to Urselmann, “Not only do the most people live there but there are also more people with a migration background.”

The spread of the foreign supermarkets does not influence the standard supermarkets, Urselmann said. “The often specific offer deviates from what is commonly found in the Netherlands. The most popular products are often picked up quickly by Dutch supermarkets.”