Spinneys

Spinneys is a supermarket chain active in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Lebanon, Oman and Iraq. It began as a railway provision merchant company, and expanded to a grocery firm importing British Empire goods to Mandate Palestine.Dubai FAQs information guide - Spinneys The largest shareholder and manager of the brand is the Dubai based Al Bwardy Investment, founded by Ali Albwardy.

History

The supermarket was founded by Arthur Rawdon Spinney (CBE), who served in the Staffordshire Yeomanry, and later on the staff of General Allenby.Meir Shalev, Barbara Harshav, Esau: a novel, Harper Collins Publishers, 1994, p.19 In 1924, he organized a provision department for Palestine Railways in the suburbs of Alexandria.The Near and Middle East who's who, Near and Middle East Who's Who Publ. Co., 1947, p.256John Murchison Munro, The Nairn way: desert bus to Baghdad, Caravan Books, 1980, p.88 By 1929, he was already the President of the Economic Counsel of Haifa. His next move was establishing an import and shipping headquarters in Haifa. He sold imported English goods from a store on Jaffa Road through his two companies Spinney's Ltd., and Full-worth Ltd.

His commercial endeavors and connections to the Palestine Commissioner led to his appointment as trustee for Haifa during World War II.Great Britain and the East: Volume 55, 1940, p297 Spinney also served as the Hungarian Consul General in Palestine.List of accessions to repositories, H.M. Stationery Off., 1972, p.90 He went on to open two branches in Jerusalem, in the Greek Colony and Mamilla, which operated until 1949.Gillian Grant, ed., Historical Photographs of the Middle East From the Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, Catalogue, BRILL, 1985, p.33

Initially Spinneys branches were located in the major regional cities frequented by British subjects via the railway line: Alexandria, Cairo, Haifa, Acre where it operated the Kabri Mineral FactoryThe Jewish review, Volume 3, Jewish Teachers' Seminary and People's University, New York, 1945, p.252High quality mineral water used to make soda water; Ruth Gruber, Israel without tears, 1950, p.48 and Damascus. Since the mid-1920s, the Haifa branch, where Spinney married Cecil Joan Glegg in 1928, and was later the President of The Haifa Rotary Club,Watson, J.L.A., ed., Rotary Report from Haifa, Israel: Jewish, Arab, and British members still meet despite machine guns, grenades, and the cross fire of snipers, The Rotarian, Vol. 74, No. 3, March 1949, Rotary International, p.7 also served as agents for P&O.Orbis, encyclopaedia of extra-European countries: a survey and directory of political, industrial, financial, cultural and scientific organisations in the countries of Africa, America, Asia and Australasia, Europa publications limited, 1938, p.41 Due to interruption to railway services,Deborah Bernstein, Constructing boundaries: Jewish and Arab workers in mandatory Palestine, SUNY Press, 2000, p.168 on which Spinneys depended, with the start of the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine it moved its Haifa branch, from Palestine to Baghdad.

Mr Spinney joined the UK establishment when his daughter Elisabeth married John Slim, 2nd Viscount Slim in 1958 in London.

In the 1960s Rawdon Spinney retired from active participation in the managing of the stores, and died in August 1973 in Littlehampton, Sussex, where he was buried in the Crematorium.Gleggs from Todstack Farm Stonehaven

After the 14 July Revolution, its Baghdad store was relocated in 1961 to Dubai, Trucial States (now the United Arab Emirates) where it had operated since 1942 in Al Nasr Square, Deira. In later years other stores were opened across Arab states of the Persian Gulf region.Spinneys - History In 1948 the first Spinneys store in Beirut Souks was open. Also stores were opened in every IPC pumping stations on the Kirkuk, Haifa and Tripoli pipelines.

Present As of 2011, Spinneys Dubai LLC is a premium supermarket retailer in the Middle East owned by Emirati businessman Mr. Ali Albwardy and operates fifty-six Spinneys stores in the United Arab Emirates, some stores in Oman and plans to expand into Saudi Arabia.

Spinneys will enter the Philippines as a joint-venture with Ayala Corporation, this was right after their announcement of Makro's re entrance from the same group.

Spinneys

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