Budget chemist Kruidvat is the biggest presence in the Dutch high streets, figures on 100 retail chains from market investigator Locatus show.

Kruidvat has 965 outlets in the Netherlands, followed by supermarkets Albert Heijn with 852 shops and Jumbo with 852.

Chemist chain DA is expanding at the fastest rate, with 36 new outlets in a year. ‘DA has taken over a large number of DIO chemists, which, as a result, have taken a tumble in the top 100,’ Locatus research director Gertjan Slob told broadcaster NOS.

Other chains that are doing well are supermarket off licences Jumbo Slijterij and Coop Slijterij which rose by 21 and 15 places in the ranking respectively. One in three Jumbo supermarket now has an off licence, while most Coop supermarkets have one, Locatus found.

Newcomers to the list include personal care products group Rituals (115 shops) and New York Pizza Delivery (129 shops).

The Wereldwinkel, which sells Fair Trade articles from developing countries, showed the biggest fall. It had 400 outlets 10 years ago of which only 234 are left.

‘It’s half of what we had and we are worried of course,’ group chairman Frans Dolman told NOS. ‘Like many shops we have the web shops to reckon with. But the fact is that many supermarkets now also sell Fair Trade products, like coffee, tea and chocolate. On the one hand that is a bit hard on the Wereldwinkels but on the other it means a rise in sales of Fair Trade products.’

Dolman said the chain will now focus more on non-food products, such as bags, lamps and crockery.

Although Kruidvat has the most shops, Albert Heijn cover the most square metres – a total of 1.1 million. Newcomer departments store Hudson’s Bay comes in at number 33 with 102,000 square metres but this is likely to go down as the Canadian chain announced it was going to limit the size of its outlets because of disappointing results.