The Co-op and Spar have announced the formation of a new buying alliance.
The convenience store rivals will join forces to drive down costs by buying own-label products in bulk.
The link will involve more than 3,000 Co-op stores with annual food sales of £5 billion and 2,742 Spar stores with retail food sales of £2.5bn each year.
The venture, which follows the planned merger of Nisa-Today and Costcutter earlier this year, will be managed by the Co-operative Retail Trading Group.
Guy Cracken, head of food retail at the Co-operative Group, said: “With increasing consolidation in the sector it makes good commercial sense to build scale and improve our competitive position.”
Jerry Marwood, managing director of Spar, added: “The synergies between Spar and the Co-op are numerous which gives us confidence that this alliance will be mutually beneficial.”
