The Tosti Club toasts to new partnership and international expansion

The Tosti Club is set to expand internationally with an agreement with Noahs in Copenhagen, Denmark. A second pilot in Ireland is also on the cards.

The business is simultaneously expanding its franchise restaurants and SPAR shop-in-shop locations, while also developing its frozen convenience range, which is sold through petrol forecourts and at leisure outlets.

Jacco Heijkoop

Jacco Heijkoop, founder and boardmember of The Tosti Club, revealed the Noahs partnership exclusively to Global Convenience after meeting with Daniel Baven, CEO of Noahs Global, and Mischa Botterweck, COO of Noahs Global, in Copenhagen last month (August 2025).

“We will be the first external brand to collaborate with Noahs,” Heijkoop says. “They already operate strong brands around tacos, chicken, and burgers, but not yet tostis. Together, we want to strengthen the lunchtime occasion and explore whether The Tosti Club can also become successful internationally as a food brand.”

With an easily translatable brand name and SPAR Netherlands acquiring a majority stake in The Tosti Club in 2020, just five years after its inception, the concept looks poised to travel extremely well.

Hospitality experience and brand inspiration

With a 40-year career in hospitality, spanning hotels, restaurants and foodservice, Heijkoop is well placed to judge. After graduating from hotel school, he started as a food & beverage controller in a hotel in Antwerp, and later learned a great deal working with the Van der Valk family in Heerlen and Scheveningen.

In 1996, at the age of 26, he and his brother opened a restaurant. Their combined knowledge of hospitality and process operating enabled them to fully standardise dishes and operations. This laid the foundation for rapid growth and eventually they ran a café and two restaurants in Rotterdam.

“I am not only an optimist and a visionary, but I also have a true passion for food. From that passion, I know the market inside out, and that drive has led me to develop new concepts eventually resulting in the launch of The Tosti Club in 2015,” he says.

The inspiration for The Tosti Club came in 2015 from Heijkoop’s then 12-year-old son Coen, who was fascinated by traditional Dutch windmills and went on to volunteer at one.
“He said: ‘Dad, if you ever start something new, why not do something with tostis? Like the ones grandpa always makes. I can grind the wheat in my windmill, we can bake bread, and then make tostis from it.’”

Coen, who today works at the largest industrial flour producer in the Netherlands and still volunteers at a windmill on weekends, convinced his father to start baking bread himself and so The Tosti Club was born.

Social promotion and product focus

The first store opened on 12 April 2015 in Breda, coinciding with National Grilled Cheese Day in the US, and was an instant success.

“The Tosti Club has always been a social brand. By directly tapping into international hashtags and social media, our brand grew rapidly; people even thought we were an international chain,” Heijkoop recalls.

Six months later, a second store followed, and in 2017 expansion continued into Nijmegen and Rotterdam. Around that time, business partner Bart van Ham joined and the transition to a franchise model began.

Today, The Tosti Club comprises 59 locations, a mix of restaurants and SPAR shop-in-shops. In addition, there are more than 200 outlets where its convenience fresh frozen tostis (croques) are sold, prepared in high-speed ovens at EG Group petrol stations and leisure locations.

Before Covid, The Tosti Club operated nine standalone sites attracting thousands of guests each week. When the pandemic hit, that number dropped to zero, and the company shifted its focus fully to online sales, with just two restaurants remaining. Now, The Tosti Club aims to expand again with new franchise entrepreneurs, targeting 20 locations in the major cities of the Netherlands, Heijkoop reports.

The Tosti Club is an all-day breakfast concept. Of course, tostis are served throughout the day, but the menu also features freshly brewed barista coffee, pastries, breakfast bowls, smoothies and salads. The sandwiches are cut 18 mm thick, giving them a distinctive bite. There are 15 signature tostis, but guests can also create their own through a simple step-by-step menu.

Within SPAR stores, the focus is solely on tostis and barista coffee.

That focus has been the key to The Tosti Club’s success, Heijkoop maintains. “We concentrated on one product – the tosti – and made it our hero. From there, we built a strong brand, invested in quality, and partnered with suppliers who deliver top ingredients. It’s not just bread and cheese, it’s the complete flavour explosion of carefully selected ingredients,” he says.

SPAR Netherlands’ investment

SPAR Netherlands first became interested in The Tosti Club in 2019, when then formula manager Martijn van der Hoeven was searching for a distinctive foodservice product for lunchtime.

“The Dutch government had announced that tobacco would disappear from supermarkets in 2024. That would inevitably lead to a decline in revenue that needed to be compensated. Foodservice was seen as the right answer,” Heijkoop explains.

“From a hospitality perspective, the higher margins on tostis and barista coffee made The Tosti Club an even more attractive partner,” he adds.

SPAR Netherlands was also looking for a systematic hospitality concept, with operational excellence and optimisation at its core. It saw The Tosti Club as the perfect partner.
“We brought hospitality expertise such as a warm interior, style of communication and modular applications to the table. For us, this meant accelerated growth and the opportunity to further develop our shop-in-shop concept within SPAR FoodClub.”

SPAR FoodClub and foodservice role

SPAR FoodClub is the national foodservice brand within SPAR. The concept includes modules such as freshly made sandwiches, salads, pizzas, wraps, evening meals and more, with The Tosti Club as its hero brand.

Today, FoodClub operates in 125 locations. “The advantage is that we can run national campaigns while remaining locally flexible,” Heijkoop says.

“The concept is still young but developing quickly. The Tosti Club plays an important role as a brand that brings restaurant quality into the SPAR format and appeals to a different consumer.”

Heijkoop’s role now focuses on The Tosti Club.
“When I joined SPAR in 2020, my role was to bring hospitality expertise into a retail-driven organisation. I contributed to the strategy, processes, and standards that helped merge foodservice with retail,” he explains. “Today my focus is fully on The Tosti Club, but my knowledge and network remain available to SPAR colleagues. This ensures foodservice continues to develop without slowing down the organisation.”

“Hospitality cannot simply be learned—it is a craft,” he adds.
Convenience has become the new normal in the Netherlands, Heijkoop notes, and SPAR is well positioned to benefit from that trend.

“SPAR Netherlands is unique because our stores are smaller and more locally embedded. That requires a different approach and sets us apart. For us, convenience is not only grab & go, but about experience, hospitality, freshness and quality. Our foodservice products are prepared fresh and on-demand in the stores. This is one of our biggest differentiators. We also adapt to local needs, which keeps even small shops profitable. This hybrid model—retail combined with foodservice—sets us apart.”

Heijkoop also points out that, with the growth in the number of FoodClub locations, SPAR as a food player is becoming increasingly relevant within the wider foodservice channel. This growth allows SPAR to be competitive with the hospitality sector, both in terms of price and quality.

Point of difference and future opportunities

As well as attracting new guests into SPAR stores in the Netherlands, The Tosti Club plays a key role, Heijkoop says.

“Strong, recognisable, quality brands with a story are indispensable today for the new generations. Consumers want a one-stop-shop where they can shop for groceries and enjoy freshly prepared foodservice products,” he says.

Heijkoop points out that SPAR countries internationally are also adding or developing external foodservice concepts, such as Insomnia Coffee in Ireland, Enjoy in Austria and The Foodstall in South Africa.

“In 2020, SPAR Netherlands chose to invest in The Tosti Club, because this brand bridges the gap between hospitality and retail. From that foundation, we developed SPAR FoodClub, allowing us to build further around different eating occasions with the right food and beverage assortment.

“The most important thing in foodservice is knowing how to seduce and inspire: guests are not only looking for convenience, but above all for taste, quality, experience and attention. You need to create ambassadors and build a strong community around your brand,” he says.

Looking ahead, The Tosti Club plans to further optimise its SPAR shop-in-shops to create extra value, expand its standalone franchise restaurants, and grow its frozen convenience range. The Noahs pilot will add an international dimension—watch this space…