ShopRite Supermarkets Inc. history

Whitey Basson was working for PEPkor’s Founder & CEO Renier van Rooyen as CFO of PEPkor, a discount clothing retailer founded in 1965.

He set his sights across the Delaware River, and in 1973 opened a Shop ’n Bag in Clementon, N.J.

After completing his accounting articles he joined PEPkor as their Financial Director & Head of Operations (CFO) in 1974 at the tender age of 28.

So in 1979 Whitey had found his first target; an 8 store grocery chain ran by Barney Rogut & his family in the Western Cape.

In 1981 Whitey got a new boss at parent company PEPkor.

In 1983 the Group opened its first branch outside the Western Cape – in Hartswater in the Northern Cape.

In 1984 Shoprite purchased 6 Ackermann's grocers in a deal that saw PEPkor takeover 34 Ackermann's Clothing stores from Edgars.

In 1986 the Group expanded to the Free State, opening a store in Bloemfontein.

At the turn of the decade, South Africa was still under Apartheid rule but Nelson Mandela was released on the 11th of February 1990.

In 1991, not even a year after buying Grand Bazaars, Whitey had his eye on Checkers.

While consolidating that new business, which for the first time gave Shoprite country-wide representation, expansion plans for the rest of the continent were put into action and by 1995 the Group was able to open its first store in Central Africa, Shoprite Lusaka in Zambia.

In 1996 the Group launched the Woman of the Year Award to mark National Women’s Day.

In 1997 he made one of South Africa’s most famous deals; He bought one of his biggest retail groups in the country for 1 rand; The OK Bazaars deal.

Shoprite created Money Money kiosks for travel tickets in 1998 & layered additional financial services like airtime, funeral plan payments, prepaid electricity, Lottery scratch cards & Landline account payment.

In 1999 Shoprite Holdings was ranked 43rd in the Sunday Times Business survey of Top Companies by Price Earnings Ratio.

In November 2000 the company was identified by Financial Mail and Human Capital Corporation (Deloitte & Touche) as one of the 40 Best Companies to work for.

In Financial Mail’s Top Company Survey of 2001 Shoprite Holdings was placed 58th in the ranking by market capitalisation of the Top 150 Market Leaders.

The November 2002 opening of the Group’s first outlet in Mauritius – the first Shoprite Hyper beyond South African borders – made Group history by achieving the highest turnover ever recorded for a single opening day of trade.

The 2003 Markinor-Sunday Times Top Brands Survey identified Shoprite and Checkers, individually and combined, as South Africa’s Most Trusted Supermarket.

In the 2004 Markinor-Sunday Times Top Brands survey, Shoprite Checkers is listed as the fifth Most Admired Company in South Africa..

Shoprite added ticking to its group of companies through the acquisition of Computicket & Computicket Travel from Media24 in 2005.

The 2007 Markinor-Sunday Times Top Brands survey rated Shoprite amongst the Top 10 companies for Community Upliftment.

In January of 2009 Shoprite Holdings Ltd., South Africa’s largest grocery chain by market value, was added to Merrill Lynch & Co.’s list of most preferred stocks, with the bank citing “excellent growth” in sub-Saharan Africa.

1 supermarket in the 2010 Sunday Times Top Brand Survey.

The Markinor Top Brands Survey 2011 found the Shoprite brand to be the No 1 Supermarket for the 5th year running, while in the Top Retail Brands Section of the same survey Shoprite claimed first place in all five grocery categories.

By 2012 Shoprite became the 92nd largest retailer in the world & the largest in Africa.

As at June 2013 about 24.574 million South Africans – 70% of the total adult population – shopped at one of the Group’s supermarket outlets and it employed close on 112 000 employees having created a record 9 201 job opportunities during the year.

Deloitte’s Global Powers of Retailing 2014 ranks The Shoprite Group as the 94th largest retailer in the world.

The Financial Mail’s Top Companies 2015 placed Shoprite Holdings as the Top Retail Company in 2015 and ranked it 14th in the 2015 SA Giants list.

As at June 2016 some 76% of South Africa’s total adult population shops at one of the Group’s supermarket brands.The Shoprite Group employs almost 138000 people of whom 21000 work outside South Africa.

Pieter Engelbrecht becomes the second Chief Executive Officer in January, taking over from retail giant, Whitey Basson, who continued serving on the Board as Non-executive Vice Chairman until 25 October 2017.

In trading, the Group increases its total turnover by 3.1 percent to R145.3 billion in the 12 months to 1 July 2018.

Towards the end of 2019, the Group as a whole started to prioritise value-added services in South Africa.

Shoprite Xtra Savings Rewards is launched on 12 October 2020, a year after Checkers’ Xtra Savings Rewards was launched.

The Group launches its own mobile network, k’nect mobile, in April 2021.