Shoprite to prioritise the sale of locally-produced sugar in its stores

Shoprite Group – Africa’s largest grocery retailer – aims to sell only locally-produced sugar across its 1 189 Shoprite, Checkers, Checkers Hyper and Usave supermarkets in South Africa in a bid to encourage consumers to buy local.

This plan will be implemented in collaboration with sugar industry body South African Canegrowers Association via its ‘Home Sweet Home’ campaign which it established to educate consumers on challenges facing the industry.

“The sugar industry has faced serious challenges over the past decade including droughts, increasing production costs, falling world sugar prices, and the introduction of a sugar tax,” SA Canegrowers and Shoprite said in a joint statement.

“A major threat is weak trade protection against increasing sugar imports, which cost the local industry more than R2.2 billion in 2019 alone.

“These challenges have threatened 21 000 small-scale growers, 65 000 direct jobs, 270 000 indirect jobs, and the one million people the industry supports.”

Shoprite says it has already rolled out instore advertising in the sugar aisles of all its stores to support the campaign.

SA Canegrowers Chairman Andrew Russell said: “We welcome the Shoprite Group’s efforts to achieve this target, including partnering with us on our Home Sweet Home campaign. We hope to see more retailers and other industry stakeholders follow Shoprite’s example and commitment to helping us secure the future of the industry and its workers.”

Palesa Mofokeng is a Moneyweb intern.