Pick n Pay's turnaround is finally showing up in the numbers, just not in the place you might expect. In a trading update for the 20 weeks to 19 July, the retailer grew group turnover 2.7%, with online sales up a striking 37.5% and its clothing division clawing back to -1.3% on a like-for-like basis, a sharp improvement on the -5.6% slump of the prior half. After years of losses and restructuring, that reads like progress.
Look at where the growth sits, though, and the recovery is lopsided. The Pick n Pay-branded supermarkets that give the group its name were essentially flat on turnover. Almost all the momentum came from elsewhere.
Boxer and online do the lifting
The standout performer was Boxer, the discount chain Pick n Pay spun off in 2024, which grew turnover 7.2% and opened 19 new stores during the period. Online was the other engine, up 37.5% on the back of Pick n Pay asap! and groceries on the Mr D app. The core supermarkets, meanwhile, are still working through a store-estate reset that has closed or converted hundreds of loss-making outlets, a clean-up that dents reported turnover even as it improves the quality of what remains. Internal food inflation of just 1.3%, below the 2.5% shelf rate, helped volumes but capped how fast sales could grow.
The fight that decides the finish
Management was blunt that much remains to be done, and the hardest part is not on the shop floor. Pick n Pay has tied its goal of breaking even by the 2029 financial year to concluding a mass-retrenchment process it began in May. Its main union, SACCAWU, is opposing that process, which now sits before the Labour Court and the CCMA, the country's labour mediator. In June the Labour Minister stepped in to pause cuts that could affect as many as 22,000 workers.
That standoff is the real cliffhanger. The trading update shows a business that has stopped bleeding and started growing in patches: online, clothing, Boxer. But the path to actual profit runs straight through a contested labour negotiation, and until that resolves, the turnaround stays a story only half told.
