Pick n Pay shuts first hyper market

Pick n Pay has quietly shut one of its Hypermarkets, the store known as Hyper Vaal.  This is the first Hypermarket that has closed in the country.

It is located in the Bedworth Centre, on the R42 (Barrage Road) in Vanderbijlpark (diagonally opposite the Vaal Makro).

It closed in November 2023 and is unrelated to the current store closure and conversion programme announced by CEO Sean Summers as part of the group's strategy to restore its core Pick n Pay business. This decision would've been made months, if not years, prior to Summers returning to the retailer.

The surrounding areas have changed significantly over the last few decades, which means the overall market the store serves is very different now from when the hyper was opened.

Summers has been clear that the retailer won't simply keep trading at stores that are unprofitable for the sake of doing so.

This store must've been a particularly poor performer, given that it wasn't even left to Summers and his team to make a call on the closure.

What's notable is that a Boxer Superstore and a Shoprite have opened directly alongside each other in the box vacated by the hyper.

This means the two will go head-to-head for the same shoppers, albeit through two different wings of the centre, and even though their offerings are slightly different.

Typically, malls with two supermarket anchors situate these at opposite ends of the centre.

But given the sizeable vacancy left by the hyper - around 14 000m² - landlord Vukile Property Fund had little option but to locate the two stores alongside each other.

Boxer and Shoprite are the two new anchors of the centre.