Pick n Pay mega-store in South Africa’s semigration hotspot gets a gourmet butchery, deli and a sushi bar

Pick n Pay has revamped its store at Heritage Mall in Port Alfred, adding new food offerings and upgrading parts of the supermarket as part of its efforts to improve the in-store shopping experience.

The store now features a sushi bar, alongside an expanded fresh-food offering that includes a gourmet butchery and deli. It has also received an upgrade to its beauty section.

The Pick n Pay at Heritage Mall has been undergoing a series of improvements, with the retailer announcing the completion of its store revamp on 12 October 2026.

The supermarket subsequently introduced its new sushi bar, announcing on 4 November that sushi was available in-store. The retailer has also made upgrades to its beauty aisle.

The new food offering gives shoppers access to additional prepared and fresh-food options alongside the supermarket’s traditional grocery range.

The store is located at Heritage Mall, which forms part of the Port Alfred central business district. Its tenant mix combines national retail chains with smaller, independently managed specialist businesses.

Port Alfred is a coastal town in the Eastern Cape that has attracted people looking for a different lifestyle outside major metropolitan areas.

The Port Alfred revamp forms part of a broader strategy under Pick n Pay CEO Sean Summers to improve the retailer’s supermarkets and win back customers.

Summers has previously said that Pick n Pay needs to use its existing property portfolio more effectively by upgrading stores on a targeted, store-by-store basis.

Speaking in March 2025, he said the retailer had seen significant sales growth at stores selected for revitalisation. Sales at its initial group of seven revamped stores had increased by between 70% and 80%.

However, his plan extends beyond simply spending money on individual supermarkets. Summers said he wants Pick n Pay to establish flagship stores in major regions across the country.

These would serve as benchmarks for other stores, with smaller supermarkets adapting the same retail concepts to suit their size and location.

Pick n Pay’s flagship stores taking over South Africa

Summers previously identified Pick n Pay on Nicol in Sandton as an example of what these flagship stores should look like.

The store was the last one Summers worked on during his first stint as Pick n Pay CEO, which ended in 2007. It opened in October 2010 and was designed as a departure from the retailer’s traditional supermarket format.

Summers said the original plan was to establish 20 similar stores around the country, with at least one serving as a benchmark in each region.

The stores would also act as training hubs, helping employees learn the retailer’s approach to food, customer service and in-store trading.

“This is the last store that was conceptualised under my watch at the end of my days at Pick n Pay the first time around,” Summers said.

“The plan was to have 20 stores like this around the country that would have served as our benchmark store in each region.”

However, Pick n Pay did not roll out the planned network of flagship stores during the years that followed.

When Summers returned as CEO in 2023, he made revitalising the retailer’s existing supermarkets a central part of its turnaround strategy.

Pick n Pay on Nicol provides an example of the more extensive food offering the retailer wants to bring to its stores.

Its 2019 revamp added a broader range of fresh and prepared food options, including an expanded butchery, fish market, oyster bar, bakery and patisserie.

The store also has a sushi counter, Teppanyaki grill, Burger Grill Bar, chicken rotisserie and specialised cheese room.

Other features include a wine cellar stocking more than 800 wines, a craft beer refill station, an organic coffee counter, a juice bar and an in-store café.

The store also offers services through partners, including a Clicks Pharmacy and MyLife Healthcare Centre.

Summers has made it clear that the success of the model depends on more than the physical store and its facilities.

“It is not only about throwing monster capital into the store because, at the end of the day, we are in the human business, and that is what we have to get back into our minds at the company again,” he said.

He added that the retailer needs to rebuild a culture centred on food, service and how employees interact with customers.

The strategy is being implemented as Pick n Pay continues to work towards returning its core supermarket business to profitability.

In its first half of the 2027 financial year, the group reported turnover growth of 2.4% to R60.5 billion and an 88.23% reduction in its overall loss to R38 million.

Its core Pick n Pay supermarkets division remained loss-making, although its trading loss narrowed by 16.9% to R516 million.

The retailer has also completed a store estate reset, closing 19 stores over the preceding year and converting some franchise supermarkets into company-owned stores.

Summers has set a 2029 financial year target for the core supermarket business to break even.

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Photos of Pick n Pay Port Alfred

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