Retail

The store cheaper than Checkers and Pick n Pay has big plans for South Africa

Kirsten Minnaar • 12 March 2026

With major grocery stores constantly raising prices and putting more pressure on consumers, one store, Best Before, is stepping in to offer South Africans low prices, and it has big plans to expand across the country.

Best Before Clearance Store was founded in 2017 by Mark Gordon and Alain Soriano, two entrepreneurs with over 60 years of combined retail expertise.

Since launching their pilot store in Wendywood, Sandton, that year, Best Before has grown to eight retail locations, with its first store outside of Johannesburg opening in October 2025.

Unlike traditional salvage outlets that sell damaged or shop-soiled stock, Best Before focuses on short-dated and past-dated products that are still high-quality and safe, giving shoppers access to big-name brands at a fraction of the cost.

South Africa has long had a thriving discount clothing market, with shopping centres like Woodmead Value Mart built on the concept. “People are under real pressure and looking for deals,” Gordon told Daily Investor.

This made him wonder if the same discount retail idea would translate to the grocery market, which he believed had become overpriced.

“I think the average South African consumer is under serious pressure. And a lot of that pressure is because of the grocery industry,” he said.

Comparing the prices South Africa’s major grocery retailers are charging today to five years ago, Gordon claimed that prices have quadrupled. “Why should it happen? There’s no reason,” he said.

“So, we started looking to find locations and a particular target market that we felt was under immense pressure, particularly in the food space.”

While Gordon knew which space he wanted to operate in, he had to find a way to bring the same products that major grocers were stocking, but at a lower price.

He explained that they found the big grocery stores’ Achilles heel, which they were able to use to their advantage. “And that’s the part that really made Best Before successful,” he said.

The secret behind Best Before’s ‘cheap’ groceries

The Best Before team decided to approach South Africa’s major food distributors, which had either too much or short-dated stock.

Even though a product may have months left before it reaches its best-before date, some major grocers will refuse to buy that stock, leaving the distributors with perfectly fine goods that they cannot do anything with.

“We were able to do something quite clever,” Gordon said. They gave these distributors another channel through which they could sell these products.

“That opened the door for us, and by allowing us to do that, we were then putting a product out that was between 20% and 30% cheaper than the market.”

In some cases, Best Before even offers products at discounts of up to 70% off the regular market price.

“All we are doing is, that savings we’re getting, we’re pushing it onto the consumer,” Gordon explained.

These products are identical to the goods consumers find in major grocery stores. “Same grammage, same everything. We just negotiated it in a different way that allowed us to bring that stock onto our shelves,” he said.

Gordon made an important distinction, though, noting that Best Before is a clearance store, not a grocery store.

A major defining feature of traditional grocery stores is that they operate on a replenishment model. This means that they have to keep the same products in stock at all times.

Since they always need to keep certain products on their shelves, they can increase the price of those goods as well.

In contrast, Gordon explained that if Best Before cannot find a certain product at least 25% to 30% cheaper than the market price, and subsequently pass those savings onto the consumer, they simply won’t put that item on their shelves.

As Best Before grew, Gordon noted that something interesting happened, with many big distributors wanting to come onto their platform.

This made him realise that they had to start doing things differently to build a truly sustainable business.

“I can’t only build a business on deals or when they’ve got short stock or when they’ve got overruns,” he said. ”You need a sustainable model.”

Beating Checkers and Pick n Pay at their own game

Best Before started looking for product categories in which they can buy as many products as they want in order to compete with the big grocers.

Today, around 70% of Best Before’s products operate on a replenishment model and are available day in, day out.

“This product is negotiated in such a way that we’re able to deliver it on a continuous basis to our consumers and at a massive discount,” he explained.

The remaining 30% of Best Before’s stock is still sourced when they find deals, such as those stemming from short-dated or excessive supply.

Even though Best Before is now operating more in the traditional grocery space, Gordon made it clear that they are not trying to compete directly with major grocery chains.

“We’re very focused on delivering great products at an incredible price to incredible consumers,” he said.

Although Best Before is still relatively small, it has gained a lot of traction. For example, Gordon said their Facebook posts advertising deals for the week ahead are seen by around 500,000 people.

As such, the business has increasingly been inundated with requests from consumers to expand across South Africa.

“We are very niche, we’re not going to be going to war. We’re very focused on only a particular province first before we’re going to expand to other areas,” he said. “We’re very focused on delivering the right product to our consumer. That’s our game.”

Even though the retailer is not trying to compete directly with South Africa’s major grocery retailers, Gordon pointed out that it is notable that they are able to undercut these large brands on price.

“My product’s as good as any one of these brands in the stores, if not better, and I’m probably 30%, 40% cheaper than that,” he said.

“Because it’s the way we’ve learned to negotiate. And that’s what’s allowed us to slowly build a business.”

Gordon explained that the big retailers are in a difficult position, with expenses constantly rising, new store openings, and shareholders putting pressure to deliver returns. “They’re on this treadmill,” he said.

As a result, these big chains have to keep increasing their prices, putting more and more pressure on their already strained customers.

“We’re not in that world. We’re in a world that is very niche, and we fight very hard for our consumer, and I don’t believe the big groups do that,” he said.

Expansion plans

Gordon made it clear that although they know there is a great demand for Best Before across South Africa, they are being strategic about how they expand.

“For our long-term, we want to make sure our offering’s good enough to expand into the various provinces in South Africa,” he said.

He compared Best Before’s expansion strategy to the ripples that emanate after throwing a pebble in water.

“That’s our strategy. We dropped the pebble in Gauteng, and we want to own Gauteng properly. And then from here we’ll start expanding out into the various areas.”

Best Before currently has stores in Woodmead, Edenvale, Fourways, Northcliff, Krugersdorp, Boksburg, Atterbury and Centurion.

Even though the global economy has been volatile, Gordon remains bullish about Best Before’s growth prospects.

This is because, as he explained, regardless of factors like inflation and the state of the economy, people have to eat. People are also looking for deals.

“So wherever we think, and we are confident we can open up, we’re going to open up,” Gordon said. “I think I can get to 30, 40 stores quite quickly.”