Spar (retailer) throughout Asia, Africa and Oceania. In fiscal year 2017, SPAR achieved €34.5 billion ($40.1 billion) in global sales, which represented a 5.3 percent increase over 2016. The SPAR motto is "under the tree" The name was originally DE SPAR, an acronym of the Dutch phrase (). The acronym was chosen in order to resonate with the verb "sparen", which (related to English "spare") means "save [money]" in Dutch and some other languages, among them German and Scandinavian languages (with variants such as "spara" or "spare"). The acronym ended up meaning "the fir", after which the logo was chosen. As the
Tree: A Life Story were well received by critics. While several reviewers found that the authors succeeded in using accessible language, others found it too technical. Inspiration for the book came from a Douglas-fir tree with a curve in its trunk. While sitting by the tree, at his home on Quadra Island, near Vancouver, David Suzuki realized that even though his family had played on it for years, he did not know how old it was or how its uncharacteristic curve had developed. Suzuki, a science writer and broadcaster, and former zoologist, speculated that the soil might have slid when the tree was young