History 1978 Pick n Pay becomes the first South African company to secure 99-year lease rights for black employees. SA builds its first nuclear weapon.
1975 Thousands
Raymond Ackerman
1967 Raymond Ackerman acquires four small stores in Cape Town for R620,000 and the Pick n Pay empire is born. In the same year, the world’s first heart transplant is carried out by Professor Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.
1969 Following expansion into Port Elizabeth, and its declaration of “War On Cigarette Prices”, Pick n Pay enters the Business Times Top 100 Companies for the first time. Dorothy Fisher becomes the first woman to receive a heart transplant under Professor Barnard.
1971 Pick n Pay slashes
food costs across its stores signalling the start of a longrunning campaign to cut the cost of living. The world’s attention focussed on the death of activist Ahmed Timol who plunged 10 storeys from a window at Johannesburg’s notorious John Vorster Square police station.
of vehicles descend on South Africa’s first hypermarket, Pick n Pay’s Boksburg Hyper. Pick n Pay also takes on the oil companies, establishing its ongoing policy to bring down fuel prices. Nationally, work is completed on the world famous monument in Paarl, commemorating the semicentenary of Afrikaans being declared an official language.
1976
The retailer launches its own No Name brand and the SABC begins the country’s first television service. South Africa withdraws from Angola putting an end to Operation Savannah.
Paarl monument
years
War on fuel prices Professor Barnard
Steve Biko
1968 Since Raymond Ackerman began building his Pick n Pay empire in 1967, the company and the country have undergone incredible change. Fresh Living looks back over four decades of price wars, politics, sporting endeavours and corporate responsibilty.
Pick n Pay goes public and shares rocket from R1 to R6.50 on the JSE. In the first year of trading, Pick n Pay reaches a turnover of R5 million.
1970
words Rich sutcliffe | photos pick n pay archive / getty
The start of the new decade sees further expansion and the introduction into stores of the famous Ladies in Red. Pick n Pay also enters the Financial Mail Top 100 Companies. In September 1970 Phaswane Mpe was born. He became one of South Africa’s most promising young postapartheid novelists but sadly died at the age of just 34.
1972 The first South African to receive a Nobel Prize (in Physiology or Medicine), Max Theiler, dies in New Haven, Connecticut, aged 73. 1973 Pick n Pay reaches 18 in the Business Times Top 100 Companies .
1974 Pick n Pay continues
its war on prices, with founder Raymond Ackerman pressuring the government to shut down the price-fixing cartels. As the British and Irish Lions begin a controversial tour of South Africa and Rhodesia the first sextuplets in the world where all six babies survived are born in South Africa.
1977 Pick n Pay
signs the Non-Racial Manifesto and donates R25 million to the Urban Foundation for Black Housing. In a year when many bomb attacks rocked the country, Steve Biko is arrested and later dies in police custody.
1980 Pick n Pay issues shares to all races at its Mitchell’s Plein store. The government bans Pink Floyd’s Another Brick In The Wall over fears that it might be used as a song of liberty by black school children.
1979 In the year that the first Pick n Pay superstore opens, the controversial casino resort of Sun City also opens its doors. The complex became famous when the protest group Artists United Against Apartheid released the song Sun City vowing never to play the resort.
Phaswane Mpe
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www.picknpay.co.za
www.picknpay.co.za
Lions Ian McGeechan & Dick Milliken
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History
1983 Pick n Pay’s turnover exceeds R1 billion for the first time. Springboks on tour
1981 The United Nations General Assembly publishes a blacklist of 65 multi-national companies and 270 sports persons who have links with South Africa. The Springboks ignore protests to play a tour in New Zealand.
1984
Raymond Ackerman is named Cape Times Businessman of The Year, but has to abandon his company’s expansion into Australia due to union opposition. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1987Pick n Pay becomes the
official sponsor of the Comrades Marathon, establishing what has become a long-running and successful relationship with South African sport. The search for a democratic solution continues with meetings between the ANC and a delegation of white Afrikaners.
1988 A year of milestones: Pick n Pay celebrates 21 years under the banner ”Part Of Your Life”, R3 billion turnover is achieved, the company opens its 100th store, Highgate Hyper, and Rhodes University in Grahamstown establishes South Africa’s first e-mail link to the Internet.
1991 Pick n Pay becomes
the official sponsor of the Cape Argus Cycle Tour and South Africa’s suspension from the International Olympic Committee is lifted. Change in the country continues with black children being admitted to schools previously reserved for whites only and FW de Klerk, Mandela, and Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party, meet for peace talks.
1998 It’s a year of award1995 Pick n Pay becomes the Rugby World Cup broadcast sponsor. The spectacular Rugby World Cup is the first major sports event to be held in South Africa since the fall of apartheid. Queen Elizabeth also pays a royal visit.
winning with Raymond Ackerman picking up the Professional Management Review Award for The Most Admired Personality in Western Cape, while the company lands the Golden Arrow Award for Best Corporate Citizen and Best JSE Listed Company in the Western Cape. In sport, super middleweight boxer Thulane Malinga wins the World Boxing Federation title.
2001 Pick n Pay welcomes in the digital age with the introduction of online shopping. Raymond Ackerman is awarded the Business Times Lifetime Achievement Award and the company sponsors Calypso Beach Cricket. Elsewhere, 40 of a planned 1000 elephants are transferred from Kruger National Park to the Limpopo National Park.
2002 Pick n Pay launches the Vuselela 365 campaign for superior customer service. The Hector Pieterson Museum becomes Soweto’s first and just two years after the match-fixing revelations, Hansie Cronje dies in a plane crash.
2003
Pick n Pay is voted South Africa’s most trusted company, it introduces the environmentallyfriendly Green Bag and funds the first Mothers 2 Mothers site in Lebohang.
The Vuselela launch
2005
As well as launching the Pick n Pay Schools Club, the company celebrates the opening of the first black-owned Family Store in Shoshanguve. Meanwhile, Karin Kortje becomes the first non-white Idols winner. Tsotsi
2006 Raymond Ackerman celebrates his 75th birthday, and 50th wedding anniversary, with a R4 million personal donation to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital. The company picks up the Kudu Award for environmental projects. Pick n Pay also becomes the proud sponsor of the 2011 Rugby World Cup bid. The country repeats its Oscar success with Tsotsi.
The new look Pick n Pay
The Comrades Marathon
Nelson Mandela Thulane Malinga
Hansie Cronje Desmond Tutu
The Cape Argus Cycle Tour
Miss SA Jacqui Mofokeng
Red Nose Day at Pick n Pay
1982
Raymond Ackerman continues his empire building, setting his sights on Australia. The international community increase pressure on the country as the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid launches the International Year of Mobilisation for Sanctions against South Africa.
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1985 While his company takes its petrol war to the Supreme Court, Raymond and Wendy Ackerman continue their work in SA communities, pledging financial support for students attending the Zama Dance School. Jailed ANC leader Nelson Mandela rejects PW Botha’s offer of conditional release and later in the year over 200 people are arrested for marching through Cape Town protesting against his incarceration.
1986 As turnover reaches R2 billion for the first time, Pick n Pay launches its Staff Share Scheme. President Botha outlines government policy on the restoration of South African citizenship to blacks and Pass Books, part of the descriminatory Pass Laws designed to segregate the population, are abolished.
The new SA flag
1989 Pick n Pay embraces
the environment, a policy which over the coming years sees it win the M-Net/SA Nature Foundation Environmental Award for the company’s EnviroFacts project and publish its first environmental audit. Following a mild stroke, PW Botha steps down from the presidency but not before attending his first meeting with Nelson Mandela, then in prison.
1990 Pick n Pay launches both its Foodhall and Green ranges. Botha’s successor, President FW de Klerk, scraps apartheid and on 11 February releases Nelson Mandela from Victor Verster prison. ANC president Oliver Tambo and vice-president Nelson Mandela meet for the first time in 28 years in Sweden. Mandela thanks the world in Wembley Stadium, London, for support during his imprisonment.
1992 Pick n Pay turns 25, and celebrates in style becoming the national sponsor of the Olympic team in Barcelona and being named the most admired company in South Africa by the Financial Mail. A referendum is held over the constitution, paving the way to end apartheid.
1994 Pick n Pay launches the Choice brand and also becomes an official sponsor of the ultimately successful bid to bring the World Cup to South Africa. The nation’s new flag is unveiled to the world and Nelson Mandela wins the first open elections in South Africa and is sworn in as President.
1993The Family Stores
brand is launched by Pick n Pay. President FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Meanwhile, Soweto-born Jacqui Mofokeng is crowned the first black Miss South Africa at the tender age of 21. www.picknpay.co.za
Getting the products on the shelves
The Zama Dance School
1996Pick n Pay’s group-wide Vuselela, or rebirth, programme is launched, producing a new way of working and new mission statement. But Pick n Pay still finds time to become a sponsor of the country’s Olympic team in Atlanta and a supporter of the 2004 Olympic bid. The country’s new constitution is adopted. 1997Pick n Pay celebrates its 30th anninversary by recording R56m in sales in one day and reaching over 30,000 employees. It was also a big year for Mandela who met The Spice Girls, declaring it “one of the greatest moments in my life”.
Mandela & The Spice Girls
1999 The Ackerman Pick n Pay Foundation is unveiled and the company builds a new school in Gugulethu for Zama Dance School. Meanwhile, Raymond Ackerman is recognised with the Vivid People’s Choice Award for his contribution to the upliftment of South Africa’s people. Following the second democratic elections, won by the ANC, Nelson Mandela steps down and Thabo Mbeki becomes the 2nd ANC President of South Africa.
2000
Wendy Ackerman wins Rotary’s Paul Harris Award for commitment to social investment. Meanwhile, tropical cyclone Eline brings heavy rains to much of the continent and the South African Air Force has to airlift foreign tourists cut off by floodwaters in the Kruger National Park. In sport, national cricket captain Hansie Cronje, Nicky Boje, Herschelle Gibbs, Pieter Strydom and Henry Williams are accused of match-fixing.
2004 Pick n Pay joins with others supporting tsunami victims, donating R200,000. The Kids in Parks trust, which introduces disadvantaged children to the wonders of the wild, is launched and Charlize Theron picks up an Oscar for the film Monster.
2007 Pick n Pay celebrates
its 40th year with a fresh new look. The most noticeable change will be the new logo and brandline - Inspired by you - because it is you, the customer, that keeps the company moving forwards. And you that inspires it to win acolades such as being voted the company with the ‘Best Reputation’ by the The Reputation Institute and ‘Coolest Grocery Store’ by the country’s youth. While Pick n Pay celebrates its new look it joins the rest of the country in congratulating the Springbok’s on becoming the new Rugby World Cup champions.
Charlize Theron
www.picknpay.co.za
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