The story
The Shoprite Group of companies was founded when PEP Stores purchased a small grocery company with eight stores from the Geller and Rogut families in 1979. In 1990 Shoprite opened in Namibia. In 1991, it acquired the national Checkers chain.
In 1995 the first store in Lusaka, Zambia, was opened. That same year they acquired a centralised distribution company Sentra, which had been acting as a central buyer for 550 owner-managed supermarkets, thereby allowing Shoprite to expand into franchising.
In 1997 struggling OK Bazaars was acquired by the company from South African Breweries for one rand, adding 139 OK Bazaars stores and 18 Hyperamas to the company. In 2000 the group opened its first supermarkets in Zimbabwe and Uganda.
Two years later the company acquired the Madagascar stores of French chain Champion. The same year the company bought three Tanzanian supermarkets from Score Supermarket and opened its first hypermarket outside of South Africa in Mauritius. In 2005 the group acquired Foodworld as well as South African ticket seller Computicket, and opened the first Shoprite LiquorShop. The company also opened its first Nigerian store in the Victoria Island area of Lagos in December 2005.
In 2008 the Shoprite Group was added to the JSE Top-40 Index of blue-chips. In 2019 Shoprite won the Proudly South African Brand Award and was voted the best in the Grocery Store category as part of the Tiso-Blackstar/Sunday Times Top Brand Survey.
In 2011 it was announced that the Shoprite Group had entered into an agreement with Metcash Trading Africa (Pty) Limited. Under the terms of that agreement, the franchise division of Metcash was to be sold to Shoprite Checkers, including franchise arrangements with franchisees operating retail stores under registered trademark names such as Friendly and Seven Eleven.
On 19 April 2012, Shoprite became the first South African retailer to enter the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as it opened the doors of a new supermarket in Gombe, Kinshasa.
Shoprite Holdings announced at the company's annual general meeting held on 31 October 2016 that the company's chief executive officer, Whitey Basson, had decided to retire at the end of December 2016. The board appointed Pieter Engelbrecht (born c. 1970), the former chief operating officer, as the incoming CEO as of 1 January 2017. He had been with the company for over 20 years and played a leading role in the company's growth under Basson's leadership.
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Deloitte's Global Powers of Retailing 2019 (covering the 2017 financial year) ranked The Shoprite Group as the 86th largest retailer in the world.
Shoprite Holdings was an owner of Hungry Lion until 2020.
In September 2021, Shoprite withdrew from Uganda, Madagascar and Kenya, citing financial losses. In 2022, Shoprite also exited the Congolese market.
In October 2024, the group announced that it had opened 68 stores in Africa, including 53 stores in South Africa.
By 2025, Shoprite had 3,417 stores in 10 African countries. Adding on to the development of their multiple brands, the Shoprite Group was awarded the inaugural Grand Prix: Sustainability honour during the Brand Africa | 100 South Africa’s Best Brand rankings announcement in June 2025. This followed from an innovative step forward in the world of sustainability when they introduced the South Africa’s first fully recyclable potato bag in the previous month.
In 2026, Shoprite Holdings continued growing its footprint, opening a net 232 stores and increasing its workforce to more than 174,400 employees. The group accelerated growth in its digital and specialist retail businesses, with Checkers Sixty60 becoming one of South Africa's largest on-demand delivery platforms and Petshop Science expanding to 185 stores.
During the year, the company also broadened its interests beyond traditional food retail, through investments in financial services, and the acquisition of South Africa's largest coffeehouse chain by number of stores, Vida e Caffè.
From Wikipedia’s article on Shoprite Holdings, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5