Spar University is the campus branch of the Spar supermarket chain, and has opened stores in Utrecht and Amsterdam last year and earlier this year at Erasmus University in Rotterdam as well. Mid 2015 will see a supermarket at TU Delft, too. According to Spark spokesperson Mirjam Bestebreurtje, the supermarket concept focuses on the needs of the campus community for the next 48 hours.

“There will be a limited offer of long-term products”, she explains. “We won’t be selling baby food of diapers, and there won’t be as many cleaning products as you’d find in a regular Spar, for example.” Instead, it’s all about the primary needs of university folk. Prepackaged meals and lunches, salads and fresh juices some of the mini Spar staples. Alcohol and cigarettes are part of the range of the shop, too.

The announcement a supermarket was to be opened in Flux was initially met with resistance from the departments that were going to move there, too: they felt they needed the extra space to work with the ever-growing number of students. “We’ll have to improvise and make things more compact”, Managing Director Alfons Bruekers told Cursor two weeks ago.

The Executive Board has considered the objections, but still believes the space isn’t as suited for educational purposes because of the lack of daylight. On top of that, the area is quite small when taking into account the size of Flux. Add TU/e is already taking measures to deal with the student growth – according to the Executive Board – including extra staff and more classrooms in Matrix, for example.