The Group works with 19,398 suppliers across 15 African countries and 13 other countries to provide customers with products and services. Shoprite’s centralised distribution model also enables smaller women- and black-owned suppliers to enter the formal retail sector through an established route to market.
Some of these suppliers were among the winners at the 2019 Supplier Awards, including SMME owner Leanne Hansmann, who started The Little Cake Company after her husband passed away and she was left with two children to care for.
The Little Cake Company in Glen Anil, Durban, supplies cakes and cupcakes under its own brand and under the Group’s private label convenience brands. All of the company’s employees are women from informal settlements near Glen Anil.
Lesotho-based business MG Commodities was the joint winner in the SMME category. Makatleho Gladys Motsoasele, a serial entrepreneur, started the business in 2008 when as a caterer, she noticed a decline in nutritious food. Today she runs the business with her sons, Katleho (general manager) and Lele (marketing manager).
MG Commodities supplies rice and sugar beans to Shoprite and Usave stores in Lesotho and recently expanded operations to include premises in Ladybrand.
At the awards, Engelbrecht said that the Group’s partnerships with suppliers “are critical to our success and mutually beneficial”, and that “together we contribute significantly to the South African economy and also to other African countries in which we trade.”
“The access to market we give to supplier companies play a major role in their growth and development as well as the sustainability of many small and black-owned businesses,” he continued.
Groceries: Preggie Naidoo, Bliss Brands
Health & Beauty: Aubrey Lesar, GlaxoSmithKline
Perishables: Shaamil Abrahams, Pioneer Foods
Convenience Foods: Charlotte Alho, Emperor Foods
Liquor and Wine: Conrad Stickling, KWV
Private Label: Mark Chiocchetti, Centillion Trading
Fruit and Vegetables: Janus Goosen, Goosen Boerdery
Butcheries: Juan Slabbert, West Peak Speciality Meats
General Merchandise: André Bimray, Efekto
Shoprite’s partnership with suppliers helps it contribute to growing an inclusive economy. It provides additional opportunities and support for small- and medium-sized enterprises and spent 8.51% of supplier spend on black-owned suppliers and 4.66% on black, woman- owned suppliers in the last financial year.
It has also launched an innovative investment fund in partnership with Empowerment Capital Investment Partners to unlock much-needed growth capital for some of its suppliers.
