Spinneys

Grocery chain in the Middle East

Spinneys

Company type| Private
Industry| Retail (Convenience stores)
Founded| 1924; 101 years ago (1924)
Founder| Arthur Rawdon Spinney
Headquarters|

Dubai

United Arab Emirates

Number of locations

| 77+
Website| www.spinneys.com

Spinneys is a supermarket chain active in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. It began as a railway provision merchant company, and expanded to a grocery firm importing British Empire goods to Mandate Palestine.[1] The largest shareholder and manager of the brand is the Dubai based Al Bwardy Investment, founded by Ali Albwardy.

## History

[edit]

Old Logo used in the U.A.E Spinney's Mineral Water Factory Acre, 1941

The supermarket was founded by Arthur Rawdon Spinney (CBE), who served in the Staffordshire Yeomanry.[2] and later on the staff of General Allenby,[3] In 1924, he organized a provision department for Palestine Railways in the suburbs of Alexandria.[4] [5] By 1929, he was already the President of the Economic Counsel of Haifa.[6] 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.[4]

His commercial endeavors and connections to the Palestine Commissioner led to his appointment as trustee for Haifa during World War II.[7] Spinney also served as the Hungarian Consul General in Palestine.[8] He went on to open two branches in Jerusalem, in the Greek Colony and Mamilla, which operated until 1949.[9]

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 Factory[10][11] and Damascus. Since mid-1920s Haifa branch, where Spinney married Cecil Joan Glegg in 1928, and was later the President of The Haifa Rotary Club,[12] also served as agents for P&O.[13] Due to interruption to railway services,[14] 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.[15]

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.[16] In 1948 the first Spinneys store in Beirut Souks was open.[citation needed]

## Present

[edit]

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. [17]

## See also

[edit]

* List of supermarket chains in the United Arab Emirates

* List of supermarket chains

* List of hypermarkets

Portals:

* Companies
* Supermarkets

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Dubai FAQs information guide - Spinneys
2. ^ Bertram, Colin (1987). Antarctica, Cambridge, conservation and population: a biologist's story. Cambridge: Colin Bertram. p. 28\. ISBN 978-0-9512519-0-4.
3. ^ Meir Shalev, Barbara Harshav, Esau: a novel, Harper Collins Publishers, 1994, p.19 ISBN 006019040X, 9780060190408
4. ^ a b The Near and Middle East who's who, Near and Middle East Who's Who Publ. Co., 1947, p.256
5. ^ John Murchison Munro, The Nairn way: desert bus to Baghdad, Caravan Books, 1980, p.88
6. ^ "Le Guide Sam : pour l'expansion économique française dans le Levant". Gallica. 1929. p. 17. Retrieved 2025-07-13.
7. ^ Great Britain and the East: Volume 55, 1940, p297
8. ^ List of accessions to repositories, H.M. Stationery Off., 1972, p.90
9. ^ Gillian Grant, ed., Historical Photographs of the Middle East From the Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, Catalogue, BRILL, 1985, p.33
10. ^ The Jewish review, Volume 3, Jewish Teachers' Seminary and People's University, New York, 1945, p.252
11. ^ High quality mineral water used to make soda water; Ruth Gruber, Israel without tears, 1950, p.48
12. ^ 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
13. ^ 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
14. ^ Deborah Bernstein, Constructing boundaries: Jewish and Arab workers in mandatory Palestine, SUNY Press, 2000, p.168
15. ^ Gleggs from Todstack Farm Stonehaven
16. ^ Spinneys - History
17. ^ "Non-Muslim food". spinneys. Retrieved 3 March 2021.

## External links

[edit]

* Official website