For decades, the aisles in SA’s most prominent grocers mirrored the country’s social structure. Pick n Pay and Spar were built to serve the aspirational middle class, gleaming supermarkets in middle-income suburbs, stocked with everything from imported cheese to glossy magazines.
But a different retail empire was quietly being built at the bottom. Today, the contrasts between Shoprite, Pick n Pay and Spar tell a story not only of markets and margins but also of shifting class lines, consumer pressure and hard lessons in humility. It is also a story about survival.
In the 1980s, when Pick n Pay dominated the middle class and Spar comfortably franchised stores to affluent communities and abroad, Shoprite’s strategy was almost unorthodox, serving quality and value to the working class. While its competitors chased refinement, Shoprite built scale.
It opened in places others would not, invested in its own supply chain and stayed relentlessly focused on price. For years, Shoprite’s model was considered niche. But, over time, that niche became the mainstream. By the 2000s, the country’s economic growth was uneven and unemployment stubbornly high. The middle class didn’t explode; it eroded. The real consumer volume was in townships, informal settlements and lower-income suburbs.
Shoprite’s empire landed in exactly the right place. By the time its competitors noticed, Shoprite had locked in its advantage. Now it seems Pick n Pay and Spar have spent much of the past decade trying to claw their way into the space Shoprite dominates. Both retailers were designed for someone who drove to a mall, who filled a trolley for the week and who didn’t mind paying a little more for convenience or selection. That model works in a country with a growing middle class, but SA’s has not grown.
The pressure to go down-market has forced painful choices, with Pick n Pay and Spar trying to reinvent themselves, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes successfully.
Trade Intelligence senior analyst Andrea Slabber said even the retailers themselves might not have foreseen this shift. “I don’t think Pick n Pay and Spar ever imagined they would be the two retailers competing for the bottom of SA’s grocery market,” she said.
“Pick n Pay historically served the middle class and higher-income homes, even competing with Woolworths. Spar, meanwhile, positioned itself as a community retailer that could serve all income groups depending on store location.”
But what changed, Slabber said, was Shoprite’s disruption of the hierarchy.
“What I believe has changed the market dynamics is the success of the Shoprite group in positioning its Checkers trading brand and uplifting it to serve middle- to higher-income shoppers, and to many people’s surprise, actually being the competitor to Woolworths in its food offering, in particular,” she said.
Pick n Pay’s response has been the most visible and arguably the riskiest. After years of slow reform, it tried to segment its customer base with three brands: Pick n Pay for affluent consumers, QualiSave for middle-income households and Boxer for price-conscious shoppers. The theory was sound; the execution was not.
When Pick n Pay launched QualiSave, it did gain more lower-income shoppers but it also lost a big portion of higher-income customers because of range cuts and reduced assortment. Those shoppers simply did not want to visit multiple stores to find their preferred brands.
Success story
In 2024, Pick n Pay admitted defeat and folded QualiSave back into its core business. The success story, however, has been Boxer, now a national brand with tight cost control and the credibility to compete head-on with Shoprite’s Usave. Boxer’s appeal is simple: focus on essentials, keep prices low and move volume.
Investment analyst Chris Gilmour believes the problem runs even deeper than brand strategy. It is structural.
“I’m not so sure that either have actually lost out. I think it’s more likely that the ‘middle class’ has shrunk, leaving both of them in a vulnerable situation,” he said.
“While the middle-class arena has been squeezed, along with … [Pick n Pay] and Spar, the lower end has boomed, as has the upper end. Basically, there is increasingly less space for a middle-market-orientated retailer.”
Gilmour said the structural legacy of both retailers has compounded the challenge. “Legacy business models play the most significant role here in my opinion. Pick n Pay hasn’t made the investment in tech that would have helped them cope with the move down to the low end. Luckily, they’ve got Boxer,” he said.
“Spar is better in terms of tech, but it’s effectively a wholesaler/cash & carry with franchisees rather than a traditional supermarket chain.”
Pick n Pay’s broader journey has been marked by years of underperformance and complexity. Leadership changes have brought modest reform, but it wasn’t until Sean Summers returned as CEO in 2023 that a more aggressive turnaround began, cutting loss-making stores, simplifying structures and sharpening pricing. Whether he can reignite the core business remains an open question, but the company finally appears to have direction.
Spar’s turn has been quieter but just as deliberate. It has leaned on its SaveMor brand to enter underserved, low-income markets while simultaneously launching Spar Gourmet, aimed at affluent urban nodes. It’s a hedge up and down the income ladder, a balancing act that’s proving difficult to sustain. The group has also endured reputational setbacks, including governance controversies and accounting irregularities in 2023.
CEO Angelo Swartz, appointed later that year, has since tried to steady the ship. Still, the realities of the lower-income segment are harsh.
Slabber emphasised that serving lower-income households requires accepting low profit margins and relying on high-volume sales, which is why Boxer has thrived. According to Slabber, shopper loyalty has significantly declined for Pick n Pay and Spar, as well as the sector at large.
Shoprite has only had two CEOs in 40 years, and this shows in their superior performance. Pick n Pay and Spar have changed CEOs frequently, and it shows. No consistency
— Andrea Slabber, Trade Intelligence senior analyst
Lower-income shoppers typically visit three to five different stores a month. They chase specials. Retailers like Pick n Pay and Spar, especially their franchise stores, cannot match Shoprite’s buying power or pricing consistency, she said.
Leadership stability has also been a differentiator, according to Gilmour.
“Shoprite has only had two CEOs in 40 years, and this shows in their superior performance. Pick n Pay and Spar have changed CEOs frequently, and it shows. No consistency,” he said.
For both retailers, the last decade has forced a reckoning not only with strategy but with identity. These were once brands where SA’s middle class imagined itself arriving. Now, survival means appealing to a consumer who is more frugal, more mobile and more price-sensitive than ever before.
Shoprite has not had to reinvent itself. Its brands, Shoprite and Checkers, were designed for both ends of the market from the start. It can serve grant recipients and Woolworths defectors simultaneously.
All three retailers are now betting on execution. Shoprite is pressing its supply chain advantage and investing in technology to squeeze every cent. Spar is trying to unlock value from its international base, while Pick n Pay goes back to basics.
But the deeper story remains one of adjustment and humility. For much of their history, Pick n Pay and Spar assumed the market would rise to meet them. Instead, they have had to descend, adapt and rewire.
“The main lesson to learn is that the middle market is dead as far as growth is concerned, at least for as long as SA’s economy stumbles along at this pathetic rate,” Gilmour said.
Slabber, on the other hand, remains optimistic. “Pick n Pay and Spar are still strong, community-supported retailers,” she said, adding that the challenge now is how to keep them healthy in a market that no longer fits the mould for which they were built.
What the past few years have revealed is that success in retail is not just about price, but also proximity, perception and psychological advantage.
“Spar has a reputation for being good for convenience but not so good on price. This is where Shoprite has been so clever. Scruffy, downmarket Shoprite stores look cheap even though they’re not any cheaper than Pick n Pay. It’s all about appearances. But Shoprite’s tech is way superior to anything else in the industry,” he said.
“So, bottom line, Shoprite is gobbling up what’s left of the so-called middle-class market.”
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