New Checkers FreshX creates hundreds of jobs in Bay
And more in pipeline with distribution centre planned after innovative supermarket opens at Boardwalk Mall
Fresh produce, an innovative shopping experience and hundreds of jobs — these are just three of the ingredients the Shoprite Group believes will serve up a winning recipe for customers at its new Checkers FreshX supermarket at the Boardwalk Mall in Gqeberha.
Shoprite Group international CEO Pieter Engelbrecht said the new supermarket — the only one of its kind in the province — had provided more than 300 jobs for locals, with more expected in the future as a distribution centre was also in the pipeline .
Engelbrecht said at the preview opening and cocktail evening on Wednesday that the city deserved the investment.
“The building came just in time for the holiday season, which contributed towards job creation,” he said.
“We are going to invest a bit in the next few years. We are going to build a distribution centre.
“I am excited about what can happen in the Eastern Cape with developments such as these. The quality of products and the range offered here are top-class.
“An average store has 350 employed people.”
Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber CEO Denise van Huyssten said the investment made by the Shoprite Group was a good sign of investor confidence in the Bay.
“It is a vote of confidence in the city that these national brands like Checkers are willing to invest here,” she said.
“We have challenges here. Some of the challenges are national such as load-shedding.
“[Then] we have specific challenges to the city like the water crisis, but we are working hard as a business community to make the environment more enabling.
“The fact that big brands like Checkers are willing to invest here, they see the potential and they also see the future that we have some runway in terms of recovering from where we are.”
She said the Checkers investment would also have a knock-on effect for suppliers.
As part of the launch, the Shoprite Group also donated R5,000 to both the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) and the Cheshire Home Summerstrand.
Cheshire Home manager Deidre Burger said she was excited about and grateful for the donation as the home predominantly relied on donations to sustain its 56 disabled adult residents.
“I was over the moon,” she said.
“It was the most incredible news I have heard in a very long time and at a time when it is so needed.”
SANCCOB centre manager Carl Havemann said the donation came at a time when it was desperately required as the numbers of African penguins in the Bay continued to decline.
“In the last 30 years, there has been an 80% decline of African penguins in the Bay,” he said.
“We completely rely on donations, so donations like these help us to sustain the services we provide in rescuing and rehabilitating the birds in Algoa Bay.”