SuperValu, a brand of Musgrave, Ireland’s leading food retailer with a 140-year heritage, today announced doubling its product range sold on noon Grocery, the Middle East’slargest online grocery marketplace and noon.com’s dedicated fresh grocery platform. The announcement was made at a meeting held at noon’s office in Downtown Dubai, attended by Ireland’s Minister for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation, Robert Troy T.D., Ali Kafil-Hussain, Chief of Staff atnoon.com, and Liam Hyland, Director of Export and International Trade at SuperValu, as part of Enterprise Ireland’s three-day trade visit to the region.

The meeting was organised as part of Minister Troy’s two-country trade visit to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar focused on strengthening the business collaboration between Irish companies and local partners in the region to enhance trade opportunities. Organised by Enterprise Ireland, the Irish Government’s trade and innovation agency, the trade visit aims to support an accelerated economic recovery for Ireland emerging from the global pandemic by building on the success already achieved by Irish companies in the region.

Robert Troy T.D., Ireland’s Minister for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation, said, “I very much welcome the announcement today in what is a significant step forward for noon and SuperValu and indeed for UAE-Ireland relations. This partnership between SuperValu and noon will help introduce people across the UAE to a significant range of quality Irish food products that are widely enjoyed back in Ireland. Through such close collaborations, consumers really benefit from more choice, high quality products, combined with the convenience of home delivery.”

The collaboration between SuperValu and Saudi e-tailer noon commenced in June this year, making the Irish food retailers the first direct distribution partners with UAE’s e-commerce giant. With the expansion plan announced today, noon Grocery will carry a total of 250 products on their digital marketplace, which will soon include a range of fresh goods from the SuperValu brand.

The growth of e-commerce in the UAE

Dubai remains a hub for e-commerce growth in the MENA region. With the pandemic changing consumer habits, the growth of digital shopping has accelerated, resulting in many companies investing in online sales activity and omni-channel methods. According to a study by Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the UAE’s retail e-commerce market reached a record $3.9 billion in 2020, a 53% year-over-year increase driven by the Covid-19-led digital shift, while e-commerce accounted for 8% share of the retail market during the same year.

Ali Kafil-Hussain, Chief of Staff, noon, said: “Grocery is increasingly moving online, especially as e-commerce penetration has surged significantly in this region. noon Grocery, our next-day fresh grocery delivery service, currently stocks more than 60,000 products. Focusing on grocery as a priority area, we have invested heavily in cold-chain capabilities, including a state-of-the-art dedicated grocery warehouse, to ensure the best produce arrives at our customers’ doorsteps in the freshest way possible.

“When we launched the SuperValu range by Musgrave earlier this year,” Kafil-Hussain continued, “we received an overwhelming response from our customers in Dubai, particularly those in the expat community, who were delighted to now be able to get a part of home delivered to their second home here in the UAE. Through this important partnership, Musgrave is providing a significant and growing range of their products to the market.”

Food and beverage products were the third largest category (11% or $400 million) in the UAE retail e-commerce market in 2020, with high demand forstaple food, ready to eat food and healthy food products. According to Euromonitor, the retail e-commerce of F&B products had triple-digit growth rates during the pandemic.

According to Liam Hyland, Director of Export and International Trade at SuperValu, said: “SuperValu products went live on the noon Grocery online platform only four months ago and we have already hit the 250-product milestone. We aim to reach 500 products by the end of 2022 and are very excited to further extend our service later this year to include weekly airfreight deliveries of SuperValu chilled products from our fantastic Irish producer base.”

F&B driving e-commerce growth

This year, SuperValu was once again titled the leading grocery retailer in Ireland, with a 22.5% share of the market and a sales boost of €43 million in the past year alone. There is a huge demand for Irish produce here in the Middle East, and with the most exacting standards in place, companies like Musgrave are placing the world in the best position to sample these premium quality goods.

Commenting on the partnership, Noel Keeley, CEO, Musgrave, parent company to SuperValu, said: “We are incredibly excited about our partnership with noon, the leading online ecommerce platform in the Middle East. SuperValu, part of the Musgrave Group and Ireland’s number one supermarket, is delighted to see noon’s success in driving exponential online growth since its inception. Enterprise Ireland has been a great support in establishing this partnership and we look forward to developing further opportunities together. Musgrave has built a robust and reliable supply chain which will enable us to deliver much loved Irish sourced products to growing markets throughout the Middle East. Our success with noon is testament to the strength of our proposition.”

Accompanying Minister Troy on the trade visit, Kevin Sherry, Executive Director of Enterprise Ireland, said, “The world has its eyes on the Irish market, and the Middle East has increasingly been adopting innovative solutions from Ireland’s companies. The success of this partnership between Musgrave and noon shows us that the UAE presents incredible commercial opportunities for Irish companies. The region is continuing the shift to online shopping, presenting new ecommerce opportunities. Enterprise Ireland are proud to have supported Musgrave with the introduction to noon, and to very positive growth in just four months since market launch.”

Enterprise Ireland is the Irish government’s trade and innovation agency. With 40 international offices worldwide, Enterprise Ireland has four offices across the GCC, in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh.