Hendersons continues growth streak – all while prioritising its staff | Events & Awards

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Independent Retail Chain OTY

Winner: Henderson Retail - Spar

Northern Irish Spar operator Henderson Retail has enjoyed an outstanding year – outpacing both local rivals and the wider UK grocery sector.

In its tenth successive year of growth, Hendersons increased food sales by 7.7%. That was well ahead of both the Northern Irish and wider UK market. In fact, the local grocery market grew by just 1.8% during the same period, according to figures from Kantar.

Food sales stood at £10m in 2024, up from £4m in 2014.

While much of the past year’s growth was delivered via impressive like-for-likes, the group also added to its retail estate. Hendersons grew its footprint by more than 5% in the year, as a result of acquisitions and extending existing sites. The business also added four new Eurospar supermarkets.

Value was key to boosting sales in existing sites. An increasing number of items are now benchmarked against Tesco, while Hendersons also kicked off a customer insight scheme to gather feedback from almost 7,000 shoppers.

As well as the strong sales, Hendersons led the way on employee pay: frontline colleagues received an increase of almost 10%.

Judges were impressed by the retailer’s “trading intensity and efficiency improvements”. What’s more, those were achieved alongside real dedication to supporting its staff, preferred charities and the communities in which it operates.