Who Owns Checkers (South Africa)?

Norman Hertz Herber founded Checkers in 1956 in Mayfair, Johannesburg, and the chain grew through the 1960s under Raymond Ackerman, who expanded it to 85 stores and pioneered innovations including South Africa's first at-home shopping service and early in-store scanning. After Ackerman departed to found Pick n Pay, the chain faltered.

In 1991 Whitey Basson's Shoprite, then the smaller player, acquired Checkers for R55 million in a reverse merger engineered with Christo Wiese and Sanlam. The deal created the listed Shoprite Holdings and overnight expanded the group to 241 stores with nearly 22,600 staff.

The defining decision came in 2001: Shoprite repositioned Checkers to the middle-to-higher income market, separating it clearly from the mass-market Shoprite banner. The strategy transformed Checkers into the group's premium growth engine, adding Checkers Hyper large formats, FreshX convenience stores and later specialty spin-offs.

The 2019 launch of Sixty60, the 60-minute delivery service, made Checkers the leader in South African grocery e-commerce. By FY2025 the banner generated R88.4 billion in sales, up 13.6 percent, and Brand Finance named it South Africa's strongest brand with an AAA+ rating. In August 2025 it unveiled the country's first smart shopping trolley pilot.