Pick n Pay progresses with growth plan

Pick n Pay chairman Gareth Ackerman said they have made excellent progress in delivering their Ekuseni strategic growth plan.

In May 2022, Pick n Pay CEO Pieter Boone and his management team published the Group’s new long-term Ekuseni growth plan.

The plan seeks to build on the Pick n Pay brand and accelerate growth in key strategic areas, such as Boxer, clothing, and online.

The Ekuseni Plan is built around five key strategic focus areas.

• A refined and strengthened Pick n Pay customer value proposition.
• Accelerating the growth of Boxer.
• Building omnichannel and digital leadership.
• Project Future – funding Pick n Pay’s strategic ambitions.
• Winning through Pick n Pay employees.

Ackerman said despite the global and domestic uncertainties, they have made “excellent progress” in the delivery of their Ekuseni strategic plan.

“We launched Pick n Pay QualiSave last August to serve lower-to-middle-income customers,” he said.

“This means the Group now covers the whole market effectively with three tailored banners of Pick n Pay, QualiSave, and Boxer.”

The company is also revamping a large number of Pick n Pay and QualiSave stores to their new customer value propositions.

“We have experienced good sales acceleration in these refurbished stores,” the Pick n Pay chairman said.

Boxer achieved pleasing sales growth of 15.4% during the first four months of the trading year.

Online sales growth for the period was 75.3%, sustaining the strong online sales growth momentum reported last year.

Clothing sales in stand-alone stores have grown 10.9%, and liquor sales for the period grew 9.8%.

“For the four months, our internal selling price inflation was 9.5%, well below CPI Food of 13.2% for the period,” he said.

Pick n Pay has also opened a state-of-the-art Distribution Centre at Eastport and closed its Longmeadow Distribution Centre.

The retailer is also well on the way to reorganising its office and store structures, and has completed the transition of its systems into the cloud. 

“These are all strategic step changes to our operating model, which have been virtually seamless in their implementation,” Ackerman said.