{"id":824112,"date":"2025-05-16T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=824112"},"modified":"2025-05-16T16:03:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T14:03:58","slug":"woolworths-food-versus-checkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/824112\/woolworths-food-versus-checkers\/","title":{"rendered":"Woolworths Food versus Checkers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Checkers and Woolworths Food are South Africa\u2019s preferred premium food retailers, and both are showing strong growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Checkers, owned by sister retailer and discount chain Shoprite, was founded in 1956 by Norman Hertz Herber in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The retailer has a history of innovation, which includes launching at-home shopping via the South African Post Office in 1984 and SA\u2019s first grocery delivery system a year later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1991, Shoprite Group, under the leadership of former chief executive Whitey Basson, acquired Checkers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Basson, it showed strong growth and now operates from 321 stores in South Africa under the Checkers and Checkers Hyper brands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Checkers Sixty60 is the dominant on-demand grocery delivery platform in South Africa, operating from 539 stores across South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths Food is owned by Woolworths Holdings, which opened its doors to the public in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1931.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Checkers, Woolworths Food is known as an innovative company. In 1974, Woolworths became the first South African retailer to introduce \u201csell by\u201d dates on food packaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were also the first retailer to offer pre-washed lettuce, and they ran an innovation kitchen to try different recipes and come up with new ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the outset, Woolworths Food focused on ensuring that the quality of its food was at the highest standard. This is still the case today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company invests billions to ensure its customer service is top-notch. It includes store layouts that give customers an excellent shopping experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the first large South African retailer to launch convenience stores at filling stations, offering clients its products 24 hours per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths Food versus Checkers revenue<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths and Shoprite released their interim period results in March 2025, which showed strong growth for both companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths Food increased its revenue by 11.2% for the interim period from R22.4 billion to R25 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoprite reported that the Checkers and Checkers Hyper segment increased its revenue by 13.7% from R39.3 billion to R44.6 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past few years, Checkers has taken a significant market share from Woolworths Food, partly through the success of its Sixty60 service,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Checkers also implemented a strategy to target the high-end food retail space, competing directly with Woolworths Food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of the 2020 financial year, Woolworths Food owned 41% of the combined market share. This number has since dropped significantly to 36%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over this period, Checkers maintained an average annual revenue growth rate of 12.7%, while Woolworths Food achieved an average annual revenue growth rate of 8.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Checkers has maintained a higher revenue growth rate, Woolworths Food improved its revenue growth since 2021, matching that of Checkers in the last two 6-month periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Woolworths Food versus Shoprite profit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths Food reported that its profit before tax increased by 9.4% from R1.43 billion to R1.57 billion, translating to a profit before tax (PBT) margin of 6.3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths Food\u2019s profit before tax margin is much higher than that of other food retailers, which is why many investors view it as a standout company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoprite reported a PBT margin of 4.0% in its latest results, while Pick n Pay reported a PBT margin of -1.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths Food operates in the high-end food retail space and is expected to have a higher profit margin than Shoprite, which includes budget stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A direct comparison between Woolworths Food and Checkers would be more valuable. However, Shoprite has been secretive about Checkers\u2019 standalone performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoprite has also not shared any meaningful information on how much revenue or profit Checkers Sixty60 generates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most it has shared is that Checkers Sixty60 is generating less than 10% of Checkers and Checkers Hyper sales. This would be less than R7.9 billion in sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Checkers and Woolworths Food are South Africa\u2019s preferred premium food retailers. Here is how their finances stack up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":824115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[5223,7520,14670,17353],"class_list":["post-824112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-checkers","tag-shoprite","tag-shoprite-group","tag-woolworths-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824112"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":824202,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824112\/revisions\/824202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}