One of the country’s largest retailers, the Shoprite Group, seems to be on an unstoppable roll after its Checkers’ Forage & Feast won the prestigious NielsenIQ BASES Breakthrough Innovation Award.
Checkers’ premium private label range, Forage & Feast won the coveted NielsenIQ BASES Breakthrough Innovation Award in the food category for 2023.
Since its launch in November 2020, Forage and Feast has expanded to include hundreds of products across 34 different categories, from artisanal cheeses to decadent desserts, delicious roasts to speciality deli items, and award-winning festive foods garnering a huge customer following and establishing itself as the benchmark for premium supermarket food products.
The retailer’s premium private label range is endorsed by SA’s first Michelin star chef, Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen.
Renaldo Phillips, the head buyer: Private Label and Food Imports, said, “We always put our consumers first and work to deliver products that exceed their wants and needs. With Forage and Feast there is a beautiful marriage of package innovation, the highest quality products, as well as provenance. Innovation is at the core of our business, and we’ll continue setting new standards for our customers.”
The group said the range was responsibly sourced from the best suppliers and artisans, and focused on quality food, seasonality, uncompromised taste and the convenience that allowed consumers to create restaurant-quality meals at home.
The BASES Top Breakthrough Innovations Project powered by NielsenIQ is a highly regarded global award program that provides broad industry recognition for brands at the forefront of new product innovation across all FMCG categories.
The project has identified more than 700 products from around the globe as Breakthrough Innovations since its inception in 2012.
These innovations address key consumer needs and deliver stand-out experiences that redefine their categories. This, in turn, results in incredible outcomes.
The 2022 global winners represent $4.05bn+ (R83 billion) in year one sales.
Shoprite Holdings’ sales at a group and core South African Supermarkets segment level increased 18.6% and 19.9% respectively in the quarter to September 30, well ahead of selling price inflation and the market as a whole.
Africa’s biggest grocery store group said in an update earlier last week, that the elevated level of sales growth was influenced by reporting against trade impacted by the July 2021 social unrest.
“The group continues to raise the bar in pursuit of delivering the lowest prices, unmatched availability and market-leading innovation. Ably supported by the expertise embedded across our supply chain, our trading divisions have begun the execution of our festive season plan to provide our 28.5 million Xtra Savings customers with unsurpassed value and incredible ranges,” the update said.
At Supermarkets RSA, the core segment represented mainly by Shoprite, Usave, Checkers, Checkers Hyper and LiquorShop, sales from continuing operations increased by 13.3% in the three months to September. Internal selling price inflation measured 8.3%.
Market share for the 52 weeks ending September 2023 increased 124 basis points over the same period last year, extending the period of uninterrupted market share gains in the South African supermarket business to 55 months, the group said.
BUSINESS REPORT