Customers raised more than 58,000 pieces of school equipment items and bought close to 2 million forints worth of donation cards to support the second annual joint school supply collection campaign between The Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta and SPAR Hungary organised for the second time in 2022. The store chain donated a further one million forints on top of the amount raised.

The “Joy to Give!” school supply collection campaign enabled shoppers to support underprivileged students at the beginning of the school year with donations in Hungarian INTERSPAR hypermarkets. Shoppers could buy donation cards between 20 July and 4 September 2022, and they could buy school supplies such as exercise books, stationary, pencil cases, school bags, PE bags, and other useful supplies instore and hand them over to the volunteers. Monetary donations are exchanged for more school supplies by the charity service, and they will be delivered with the rest of the donations at the beginning of September to the disadvantaged families.

“This year, the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta again supports the families of 1,500 children with new school supplies, PE accessories, and school bags full of necessary supplies with the help of the customers of the store chain. The heavy costs that come with the beginning of the school year are a burden for a lot of Hungarian families. These donations help those in the most disadvantaged situations and prevent their children from having to start school missing essential or even all their school supplies. We thank our customers who purchased notebooks, stationary items, pencil cases, or other supplies at the end of August in INTERSPAR stores to support the donation campaign, as well as those who bought our donation cards to do their bit to support our campaign. With the help of SPAR Hungary, 300 school supply bags, each worth 10,000 forints, were added to the donations collected during the campaign,” said Tamás Romhányi, head of communications of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta.

“We owe our customers a big thank you, who after last year’s successful school supply collection campaign supported the initiative again this year and were glad to help the families in need. As a result, the customers of INTERSPAR and the SPAR online shop, who purchased the donation cards contributed more than 1.9 million forints during the campaign. They also bought 58,267 school supply items in the hypermarkets between 24-27 August 2022, which they then handed over to the volunteers of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta. Our company donated a further one million forints to top this up as part of our social responsibility agenda. Having witnessed the success of the school supply collection campaigns over the previous two years, we are determined to continue the ‘Joy to Give!’ initiative in this aspect as well,” added Márk Maczelka, head of communications at SPAR Hungary.

The Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta has been the strategic partner of the store chain for 25 years.  As a result of this donation campaign, the organisation collected more than 32,000 notebooks, 18,000 stationary items, 479 pencil cases, 75 school bags and a further 6,000 other creative tools to be delivered to families in need. They also prepare 300 school supply packages, each worth 10,000 forints, from the money they raised with the donation cards. These will help the kids of the families who are on the radar of the charity service to have all school supplies they need to start the new school year.

Images attached to the press release are available in SPAR Médiatár, at the address http://mediatar.spar.hu/. The interface also enables downloading additional public images from SPAR. When using the images, please credit the photos to “spar.hu”.

On the 24th of August, a live press event was organized in the Daikin flagshipstore in Budapest and parallel also online streamed to Daikin Hungary’s YouTube channel. Latest announcements and activity plans of Hungarian government regarding reducing the subsidies on heating energy prices encouraged Hungarian Daikin team to communicate more actively towards residential endusers and support them in decision-making about their heating system-renovations.

Balázs Zuggó, managing director introduced the event with facts about Daikin and the rapidly increased interest and inquires on air-to-water and also air-to-air heatpumps.  There is a general feeling of endusers panicking and taking a decision without thinking over to find the best solution.

Gabriella Szalai, environmental advocacy presented the latest reports of Hungarian Central Statistical Office, the huge number of elderly, outdated real estates with poor energy status and the gas dependency of Hungarian households. Additionally she highlighted the latest guidelines and directives of the EU which obviously support the heatpump technology.

The event ended with a part of greatest interest, when Hungarian Residential Sales Manager, István Pécsi presented examples for heatpump solutions with detailed calculations, taken into consideration the costs of heatpump/ split products , the calculated operation costs in heating season and the ROI when the installation worth the investment in years. Source of origin of these examples came from colleagues who had been asked previously to support the presentation with data from their own private life, their homes. Daikin colleagues were happy to submit data as increase of energy prices is a hot topic nowadays which concerns everyone.

SPAR has added an additional eleven used household oil collection stations around the country in June this year. This brings the total number of these stations close to fifty in SPAR hyper and supermarkets which is a convenient way for customers to return their used household oils which otherwise would pollute the environment but thanks to modern technology are recyclable. Just a single drop of used household oil could harm waters, which is why it is so important to avoid pouring it down the sink or into the bin.

In only one year almost 25 000 tonnes of used household oil are produced in Hungary, and only a very small fraction of this amount is currently returned to collection points. Used cooking and household oils and grease are heavy pollutants, so it’s vital to take them to selective waste collection points, rather than pouring them down the sink.

“SPAR Hungary started its program to recycle used household oils and grease last year with a trial period of three months, followed by the setting up of special containers with an 800-litre capacity in nine hypermarkets and 25 supermarkets in 2021. Our partner, Biotrans Kft. specialises in the collection and processing of food waste and they transfer the used household oils and grease from these collection points, for sedimentation and heating after which they are turned into biodiesel fuel. We are pleased that we were able to expand this system with a further 11 collection points added in June this year, and our goal is to set up collection points in each of our stores wherever it’s possible,” said Márk Maczelka, head of communications at SPAR Hungary.

Feedback is positive, and the results so far reflect the company’s efforts towards the protection of the environment. Following the launch of the program last year, SPAR collected 13 000 kg of used household oils in these containers between July and December 2021. This number more than doubled in just five months this year with customers returning 28 000 kg of recyclable cooking oils and grease waste to these collection points. Customers can bring back their used oils and grease in glass and PET bottles, or in the original packaging. Interactive maps help them to find the stores with the special containers.

11 new cooking oil collections points are available at:

SPAR supermarkets:

2900 Komárom, Klapka Gy. u. 69.

7500 Nagyatád, Korányi S.u. 21-23.

8300 Tapolca, Juhász Gyula út 3437/49 hrsz. (lot no.)

8394 Alsópáhok, Hévízi út 18.

8630 Balatonboglár, Dózsa út 53-59.

8700 Marcali, Szigetvári u.3.

9443 Petőháza, SPAR út 1.

9600 Sárvár, Laktanya u. 32-44.

9800 Vasvár, Alkotmány u. 95.

INTERSPAR hypermarkets:

1103 Budapest, Sibrik Miklós út 32.

8000 Székesfehérvár, Budai u. 41

The updated list of locations is available on the SPAR sustainability website: https://www.sparafenntarthatojovoert.hu/szelektiv-hulladek

SPAR is taking another step towards its sustainability goals: from the 19th of May they will discontinue the use of 100% plastic wrapping and bags in their bakery sections and will switch to ones that are predominantly made of paper. 

“SPAR has been committed to reducing environmental waste and are constantly working to reduce the amount of plastic used for their food packaging. We are currently testing the new biodegradable and compostable bags which replace the old plastic ones in the fruit and vegetable sections in some of our stores, and now we are replacing the 100% plastic bags used in the bakery sections with paper bags in all SPAR and INTERSPAR stores around the country,” explained Márk Maczelka, head of communications at SPAR Hungary.

With the more regular use of paper bags that have plastic windows, less plastic is being used which helps reduce the amount of environmental waste. SPAR has already implemented several alternatives to help customers use environmentally-friendly accessories when they do their shopping. This includes the introduction of multiple use bags for bakery products, fruit and vegetables, as well as encouraging customers to use their own bags or to avoid using any bags and wrapping at all.

SPAR Hungary and the Országos Állatvédőrség Alapítvány (National Animal Rights Foundation) has joined forces to arrange a two-day campaign called “Mancs a bajban!” (Paw in trouble!) to collect pet food in selected INTERSPAR stores on 7-8 May. Thanks to customer donations, more than 10 000 kg of dry dog food and close to 2000 kg of dry cat food was collected.

“Our hypermarkets all over the country have participated in the ‘Mancs a bajban!’ (Paw in trouble!) programme for the second year in a row, which we started last year and thanks to its popularity we are turning it into an annual campaign. We are working on bringing in more and more animal rights protection organisations to help pets in need with a programme that also creates a community. SPAR’s customers have yet again proven their selflessness and commitment, as well as showing how much they care about the importance of social responsibility. As a local store chain we have been supporting the work of Hungarian animal shelters, zoos, and wildlife parks for more than ten years by donating our surplus and not for sale animal products to them,” explained Márk Maczelka, head of communications at SPAR Hungary.

During the “Mancs a bajban!”  (Paw in trouble!) animal food collection campaign, the company involves customers in helping animals in need while raising awareness for the importance of responsible pet ownership and animal protection, as well as providing an insight to the important work of non-governmental organisations. Campaigns like this are a great help for the participating organisations, as it allows them to utilise their budget on other important things such as must-have pet accessories, life-saving medical procedures and improvements to their facilities.

Activists from more than thirty animal protection organisations collected donations such as dry pet food, cans, animal accessories, and cleaning products on the 7th and 8th of May 2022 in selected INTERSPAR stores.

Across the two days of the pet food donation campaign, the volunteers from the non-governmental organisations collected more than 10 000 kg of dry food and 3500 cans for dogs; and more than 1700kg of dry food, 2700 cans, 4400 pouches and 1400kg of litter for cats.