The 300 m² ‘Digital Leadership Store’ will invite customers to experience and try out new technological and innovative features. A SPAR market will also open on the Med Campus. Customers can, for example, create a customized snack using an app. Customers can also shop online and pick up their order any time during the day or night at a special window. There is immense potential: the JKU has over 20,000 enrolled students and 3,000 employees. There are also two student dorms and residents in close proximity.

Setting New Standards Together
Jakob Leitner, managing director at SPAR headquarters in Marchtrenk, emphasized, “We have a great deal of experience in managing special locations and as a full-service provider it is our mission to provide our customers with the rich culinary diversity our country has to offer.”

Leitner added, “The JKU and SPAR are not only signing a contract for an on-campus supermarket, but these two markets will also serve as the basis for a strategic partnership between academia and business and will allow us to set new standards in the field of technological innovation.”

JKU Rector Meinhard Lukas remarked, “A modern SPAR market on campus fits in perfectly with our self-image: We want to create a place that is more than just about studying and working but also offers conveniences as well. The fact that the supermarket will invite customers to experiment with new technologies falls in line with the adjacent Open Innovation Center at the Linz Institute of Technology (LIT) where our researchers will shape the future in close cooperation with industry.”

A SPAR market is scheduled to open at both the JKU Med Campus and at the Kepler University Clinic in the city center in 2021.