Holland & Barrett Sweden merges with Hälsa för Alla
Holland & Barrett Sweden has merged with Hälsa för Alla, a natural health and wellbeing retailer currently trading as a LIFE Europe AB franchisee.
Hälsa för Alla was founded in 1986 by brother and sister team Peter Furusten and Siv Britt-Marie Furusten and was acquired under franchise agreement by LIFE Europe AB in 2014. It currently has 12 outlets across Stockholm.
Holland & Barrett opened its first store in Sweden in 2016 in the ‘Mall of Scandinavia’, and has since added a further three stores in the Stockholm area.
The merger with Hälsa för Alla will quadruple the size of the Holland & Barrett store portfolio in Sweden and as it looks to build a portfolio of 500 stores across Scandinavia in the coming years.
All Hälsa för Alla stores will be rebranded and offer the full Holland & Barrett product range. The company’s staff and management team will continue to be led by chief executive Rikard Furusten.
Chris Keen, chief financial officer at Holland & Barrett, said: “Sweden has for some time been a key market for us given its maturity and well-established consumer appreciation of healthy living. Today’s merger consolidates our position in Stockholm and provides an important platform for planned further growth of our business in Sweden and across the wider Scandinavian market, which we believe has capacity for some 500 more stores. “
Data from Euromonitor International shows that, although the Nordic countries only represent 5% of the total population of Western Europe, their share of retail sales in the packaged food category, including natural health products, was almost triple that at 13%.
