Abu Bakr’s Hamza Hussain: UK’s youngest supermarket boss is on a mission

We’re not just an ethnic supermarket,” beams Abu Bakr MD Hamza Hussain. That much is quickly evident when The Grocer visits Abu Bakr’s 15,000 sq ft flagship store in Batley, near Leeds, on a scorching hot lunchtime the day before Eid.

Excited families are stocking up on dates, rice and sweet treats, which are all on special offer ahead of the big day. As are less traditional fare such as Irn-Bru and Takis crisps. Elders scrutinise the promotions on the fresh meat and fish counters. And, despite the heat, food-to-go delis serving hot curries, bakery and £1 chai tea are as busy as ever, with workers and students grabbing a takeaway or retreating to the in-store restaurant.

“We do everything,” says Hussain, reeling off some of Batley’s 10,000 SKUs. “Believe it or not, 50% of our shoppers are non-Muslims from the local community. We aim to attract everybody.”

The Leeds-based supermarket chain is also doing things differently when it comes to leadership. At the ripe old age of 23, Hussain is the youngest supermarket MD in the UK.

Having started on the tills at the Batley store, he succeeded his father Sajid in January, taking ownership of Abu Bakr’s five supermarkets and warehouse site, all of which are within West Yorkshire.

Yet he’s not even the youngest person on the board. Younger brother Esa was appointed commercial director aged 20 in April to oversee buying and procurement. “He’s the backbone of the business,” Hussain says. Cousins Asad, who runs Abu Bakr’s Kirkstall Road store, and Ibraheem, who runs its Roundhay branch, were also made directors.

The new generation have had a busy few months. Abu Bakr has launched a nationwide, premium online halal butcher service called Ayah Halal, rolled out swathes of price cuts and began work on a number of community projects, including a “five a day” campaign to get children eating more fruit.

It also saw the business nominated for independent retail chain of the year at The Grocer Gold Awards 2026 in July. The ensuing visit to the Royal Albert Hall was a huge milestone in Abu Bakr’s journey from the single halal grocery store opened in 2002 by Hussain’s father and uncles to serve the Hyde Park area of Leeds. For its next chapter, Hussain is aiming even higher and has ambitions to take Abu Bakr nationwide.

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‘An Abu Bakr in every town’

In March, Abu Bakr unveiled an ambitious £18m expansion plan to open six new stores across the UK, expanding outside Leeds for the first time. The chain will also completely renovate the Hyde Park store as part of the plan, which it anticipates will create up to 180 new jobs nationwide.

“We want to hit the big cities: Manchester, London, Glasgow and more,” Hussain says. When he adds the likes of Leicester and Slough, it’s clear he’s targeting metropolitan areas with major Muslim populations that are underserved by the local supermarket offer.

“My vision is to have an Abu Bakr in every town,” Hussain says. “We want to be the Asian Asda.”

Hussain also envisions opening smaller Abu Bakr Express stores and is working on launching a loyalty programme as part of the expansion.

Finding the right sites is vital to the expansion plan, he says, and Abu Bakr is on the hunt for sites with a similar profile to Batley: on a retail estate with free parking.

He also recognises that growing awareness of the Abu Bakr brand is critical to getting shoppers through the doors – and that’s been one of Hussain’s major focuses since taking over. He was an aspiring boxer before injury cut his career short and had already built his social media following prior to taking over the business. He initially handled all the chain’s social media himself, but one of his first moves as boss was to employ a dedicated social media team.

It’s paid off, he says. Five-store Abu Bakr now has more than 42k followers on Instagram and nearly 40k on TikTok. Its playful feed features posts showing off the latest NPD and viral trends it has in stock, like Dubai chocolate most recently.

Abu Bakr’s team has also handed out free vouchers to shoppers in Leeds city centre and even surprised one with a free £100 shop to celebrate the Batley store’s one-year anniversary.

Hussain sees such activity as a useful way of generating buzz further afield. “We’re in West Yorkshire, but we get people from Manchester, Sheffield, as far as Birmingham who come every month, because they know what they’re going to get.”

He sits down once a month to discuss strategy with the social media team, including what products they’re going to show off.

Hussain has also rejuvenated how Abu Bakr shows up in its own stores, including branding and point of sale, to ensure it better reflects the supermarket’s promotions and “unbeatable” pricing. It’s just launched new own-label lines, with nuts and food-to-go kebabs among the first branded products. And Hussain doesn’t rule out eventually launching an own-label range into other supermarkets as a way of reaching more Abu Bakr customers. “It’s good marketing for us,” he says. “These are popular products for us now.”

“My vision is to have an Abu Bakr in every town. We want to be the Asian Asda”

Hamza Hussain

Hussain’s ambition to build a nationwide chain of Asian supermarkets speaks to the size of the opportunity yet to be tapped in the UK. During the month of Ramadan alone, Yorkshire’s Muslim population can put up to £174m through the tills, according to Abu Bakr’s estimates. Nationwide, Muslims spend an estimated £1.3bn during the holy month alone, according to a 2025 report from the think tank Equi.

While the likes of Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Iceland have all been expanding their halal and world food ranges over the past couple of years to try to capture this demand, research suggests many Muslims still feel underserved by the offer available in the mults.

That’s where Abu Bakr can win, Hussain believes. A large family will often spend between £500 and £600 a week in an Abu Bakr store, knowing they can get their entire grocery shop, along with cooking tools and some food for the road, under one roof. Abu Bakr also recently extended its opening hours to midnight to make sure it’s catering to more shoppers.

“We know our customers,” he says. “We have direct supply contacts, our prices are unbeatable and compared to the range we can get, they [the mults] won’t be able to do it.”

Unseating the big, established players is no small ambition. Hussain might be half, even a third of the age of those he is setting out to compete with, but he’s adamant he’s earned his place at the table.

“There’s a lot of pressure,” Hussain says. “People look at you and think: ‘Oh, he can’t run the whole business’. But you just have to get on with it. And I know my business inside out.”