The discount supermarket Boxer is nearing fifty years and is opening hundreds of stores, and its sixth distribution centre, across the country.
Recently the 450th store was opened and people are starting to realise that Boxer is a major player, remarks Boxer’s head of fresh produce Deon Wessels. “We can move the volumes. We feed many South Africans and want to get it into the stores.”
The supermarket positions itself for the lowest income as well as the aspirational income brackets (photos supplied by Boxer)
Jason McCall, Boxer’s communications specialist, says they know exactly what their customers require. “We offer a curated range of items to shoppers, affording value and affordability to all shoppers, in line with the mandate of being a discount supermarket. One of the pillars of being a discounter is a focused SKU range, however it’s not as a result of a single type of shopper, rather, it's in order to give all shoppers the opportunity to get more, for less.”
“Our customers crave and deserve value and affordable items, hence our curated SKU range. For our shopper, quality and affordability rank very high,” Jason continues, as it does for themselves, even when, he notes, it cuts into the profit margin.
Subsidised apples and oranges
Boxer is subsidising red and green apples on Friday to celebrate the store's 46th birthday.
“We’re promoting red apples three times as hard as Golden Delicious, because Goldens really are very short at the moment,” Deon notes, and 1.5kg bags of red apples have been their fifth largest fresh category this year.
Right: 1kg bag of red apples on promotion
Similarly, Boxer has been aggressively promoting and subsidising 6kg bags oranges for the past three months (two 6kg bags for R40 or 1.97 euro).
Deon says that customers are very responsive to their promotions; orange sales have been excellent, ranking it among their highest-selling fresh products.
They have now turned mostly to red apples (the store doesn’t differentiate between cultivars, only between red and green) purely because of tight apple availability.
Deon explains that because Boxer is a discounter, a distinction between soft citrus isn’t made: it is all folded into the moniker of easy peeler. Lemons have not been a big category, but there is a definite upswing in lemon sales: last year they sold 65,000 kg of lemons, this year 200,000kg have already been sold.
Movement in lower priced items at expense of onions & potatoes
Bananas head their list of most volumes sold every year, with 12 million kilograms sold on average.
“It’s our top seller every year, followed by cabbages of which we move around 5 million heads a year. We’ve seen a huge movement in the lower priced items like bananas, cabbages, spinach - even apples and oranges, compared to our larger packs on 10kg potatoes and 7kg onions because of where the prices are going.”
He notes that potato prices are approximately 60% higher than last year, and onions even double.
“Last year, a 10kg bag of potatoes and a 7kg bag of onions sold for R89 [4.4 euro]. Now they are on promotion for R200 [9.8 euro],” he points out.
“Last year onions were second on the list of volumes sold because we funded them quite aggressively. This year it’s dropped to number nine, purely because of inflation.”
Grape, stonefruit, lettuce categories grow
“We actually move a lot of table grapes, and it doesn’t have to be seedless. We just don’t sell black grapes. Every year there’s bigger and bigger uptake of grapes and stonefruit. In 2021 we sold 1.5 million tubs of stonefruit and in 2022 1.8 million tubs of stonefruit. We’re quite big on plums in a 1kg bag and a tub, and we see a growth in plums of half a million tubs every season.”
Plums are cheap compared to peaches and nectarines, he explains.
Consumers are making healthier choices, and it’s reflected in their lettuce category. “We see a substantial increase in lettuce (we only stock Iceberg), cucumbers and tomatoes every year. We sell 1.4 million cucumbers a year.”
Okra is sold mostly through their stores in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, while so-called Indian vegetables like loofah, dhania (coriander leaves) and mint are sold in predominantly Indian areas.
They used to sell amadumbe, an indigenous tuber related to taro, but it didn’t sell well because they were directly competing with street traders.
In KZN, Boxer is largest purveyor of kale
Deon mentions the introduction of kale at the behest of Alex Maseko from Harvest Global and KwaZulu-Natal’s major kale grower for retail.
Harvest Global grows two varieties, flat kale and curly kale. He expected kale to be popular, Alex says, but he thought it would sell best in Boxer’s Durban inner city stores. Deon convinced him to trial it instead in Hammarsdale where kale has become an unexpected top seller.
Alex laughs. “That’s where Deon proved me wrong. Hammarsdale buys at least 500 bunches of kale a week, and that’s not what I was expecting.”
Flat kale has been an unexpected hit for Boxer in KwaZulu-Natal, grown on Alex Maseko's farm Harvest Global in Peacevale, KZN
“I was initially very sceptical about putting kale on our shelves,” Deon recounts, “now KZN Boxer is the biggest buyer of their kale and we’ve become the largest supplier of kale in the province.”
“Farming is not an easy game,” Alex adds, “Boxer is respectful to the trade. They understand how the product ends up on the shelf so that when we arrive at pricing, they are very accommodating and open to negotiations.”
Boxer seeks farmer partnerships for volume growth
Boxer's MD Marek Masojada with a spinach and cabbage farmer and graduate from Boxer's farmer development programme, in Mt Fletcher, Eastern Cape
Boxer has entered into training and offtake partnerships with farmers and recently 300 farmers graduated from Boxer’s Small Scale Farmers Programme in the Eastern Cape.
“We are predominantly market buyers but we’re moving more towards a direct purchasing model,” Deon says.
“When we run promotions on certain lines we drive demand for that product and the market price at which we buy it, goes up, so we lose out. We’re trying to build relationships with farmers who will commit to promotional periods.”
Graduating farmers from Boxer's farmer development programme in Alfred Nzo Municipality, the Eastern Cape
For more information:
Jason McCall
Boxer
Email: [email protected]