Retail

New South African store sells products for half the price of Checkers and Pick n Pay

Shaun Jacobs • 17 May 2026

Still Good, a South African online store, offers groceries, toiletries, electronics, and perfumes at prices up to 65% lower than major retailers.

The company manages to do this by selling “surplus” food that retailers will not stock on their shelves due to oversupply or packaging changes.

It guarantees that it is always fresh, nutritious, and safe to eat, with Still Good partnering with suppliers to SPAR, Pick n Pay, Food Lover’s Market, and Absolute Pets to get access to their surplus stock.

The company is expanding across South Africa, with 175 stores available on its platform across all provinces except Limpopo. It is heavily concentrated in the Western Cape, Gauteng, and KwaZulu-Natal.

It is far from the only offering in this space, with Best Before doing something similar but through physical stores after its launch in 2017.

Best Before specifically focuses on short-dated and past-dated products that retain the same quality but are able to be sold for lower prices.

While Best Before is focusing heavily on offering lower prices to shoppers, Still Good was born out of a desire to tackle food waste across South Africa.

Founder Steffen Burrows explained to Cape Talk that Still Good became a reality after he worked for two years at Pick n Pay where he saw South Africa’s food waste problem.

It is estimated that around 10 million tonnes of food is wasted every year in South Africa, which is equivalent to R61 billion and about one-third of all production.

“The reason behind Still Good was this massive food waste problem in South Africa, with up to 10% of food being wasted at some stores on a daily basis,” Burrows explained.

“We provided an avenue for that food to find a home or an alternative sales channel through our mystery grocery bags.”

The company’s core business is these mystery grocery bags, which are packed with short-dated or on their sell-by date fresh food, convenience meals, or bakery products.

These products have not been sold through the store’s typical sales channels and are instead packed into mystery bags, which are sold online and picked up in-store.

Now Still Good has launched an online store which focuses on discounted groceries and food, with an emphasis on more non-perishable products, given the need for transport.

How Still Good does it

Still Good effectively benefits from the overcapacity of some of South Africa’s major food distributors and retailers, with it only selling the unsold products from stores.

This is largely due to South Africa’s four-tier food control system, which results in some retailers refusing to stock items even if they have months left before hitting their best-before date.

Burrows explained that there are four main dates in the food control system – the sell-by date, the use-by date, the expiry date and the best-before date.

The sell-by date is used by the retailer to know when to pull stock off the shelf, with the use-by date indicating the date by which the product should be consumed, which is typically a day or two after the sell-by date.

These dates are also used for different types of items, with sell-by dates largely being used for fresh food and use-by dates being limited to convenience meals.

Expiry dates are typically used for non-food items, such as detergents, toiletries, and perfumes.

The best-before date on ambient groceries that do not require refrigeration is where Still Good gets the majority of its stock from.

This date comes from the manufacturer, which indicates when the product is at its best quality. It does not mean you cannot use or sell those goods after that point in time.

“We try to set on our online store a window of about six months beyond the best-before date, but generally our stuff is close to the date or just before it,” Burrows said.

Burrows explained that ambient groceries in the original packaging, such as tinned or dry goods, are typically good to eat for around a year after their best-before date.

Still Good’s online stores focus on these ambient groceries alongside toiletries, cosmetics, and perfumes. It has recently added electronics to the mix.

“The purpose of the online store is to help manufacturers, producers, and wholesalers clear short-dated stock and problematic stock,” Burrows said.

“Some of the stock is problematic in that suppliers ordered too much of it, a change in seasons, and a lot of it is short-dated when it comes to food.”

Burrow said this enables the company to offer these products at a massive discount of up to 70% and more on their typical retail price.

“What we provide is an incentive for producers and manufacturers to move these goods and not dump them. A large part of our stock may be donated, but it is a commercial mechanism to get food to customers,” Burrows said.