The Story of How Food Lover’s Market Successfully Launched & Expanded In South Africa

From a single Fruit & Veg City store in Cape Town to the largest privately owned independent food retail group in Africa, Food Lover’s Market has been giving out fresh produce excellence in South Africa for the last 28 years.

More than 130 Food Lover’s Market stores later, the group today boasts stores in South Africa, African Sub-Saharan countries and Mauritius and counts its more than 17 000 colleagues in all of its 575 stores across all the brands, as part of the Food Lover’s Market family.

The Food Lover’s Group is valued at around R471bn, and now includes several retail brands like Seattle Coffee, Food Lover’s Eateries, two liquor store brands and FVC International.

Background

Food Lover’s Market was launched in 1993 by brothers, Brian and Mike Coppin, as a single Fruit & Veg City store at Access Park in Kenilworth, Cape Town. The store was converted from an existing business called The Carrot King into a Fruit & Veg City outlet.

From the get-go, Fruits & Veg City has always been a family business, with emphasis placed on good old family values such as trust, integrity, and honesty. The brothers’ vision was to create a store that resembled old marketplaces, where farmers brought their fresh produce to be sold to the public.

They sourced the store’s products directly from farmers and municipal markets, and priced them aggressively in order to expand in the market while at the same time, competing with existing retail chains.

The first store was an instant success and returned the initial investment within six months.

By 1995, the Coppin brothers were approached by someone wanting to operate a store in Port Elizabeth, and just like that, the first franchise store was opened. Franchise stores in Durban, East London, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Johannesburg soon followed.

By 1998, they seemed to have perfected the store’s model, and the brand as a whole was beginning to become a household name in the country.

In the next 10 years, 86 stores were opened, of which two-thirds were franchised, and employee numbers exceeded 4000.

In 2004, the company spreaded its wings beyond the borders, and formed an international division, Fruit & Veg City International to handle exports.

“From our first day we knew that to get people into our store, we had to do it by means of aggressive pricing while at the same time of fering the best range of quality fruit and vegetables,”The Coppin brothers

By 2006, Fruit & Veg City was moving over 2000 tons of produce to 80 000 customers everyday, which made them the biggest fresh produce retailer in SA with a turnover of more than R1.5 billion a year.

In 2007, Pick N Pay wanted to acquire 100% of Fruits and Veg City, but the move was blocked by The Competition Commission because the transaction would’ve limited competition in the market.

Food Lover’s Market

The next step in the evolution of Fruit & Veg City was to create a modern eatery where food lovers could indulge in a range of gourmet foods. It was this vision that finally gave birth to the Food Lover’s Market, a theatre of food that was designed specifically with connoisseurs in mind.

The team crossed the globe in search of the hottest international trends in food by visiting the Europe, United States, the East and Australia, and then brought the best elements of what they saw there back to Mzansi.

The result was the stylish and modern food emporium called the Food Lover’s Market.

In 2012, the company expanded its offering to include non-food items, and converted all its Fruit & Veg City outlets to the Food Lover’s Market brand. Two years later, it began stocking items in a number of grocery categories from British retailer, Waitrose.

In 2016, Actis, through its private equity arm invested R760 million for a minority stake in Food Lover’s Market. Food Lover’s Market used the proceeds to boost its local growth potential.

When Actis invested the R760 million in 2016, Food Lover’s Market had:

• 200 FreshStop convenience stores in Caltex stations.
• 120 Food Lover’s Market stores in 11 countries.

In 2023, the investment has thus far yielded:

• 330 FreshStop stores.
• 130 Food Lover’s Market stores in 22 countries.
• 240 Seattle Coffee.
• 46 Market Liquors outlets.
• 14 eateries.

In 2021, the owners of Food Lover’s Market announced that the group had a turnover of R11bn – R12bn excluding Seattle and FreshStop.

Should Food Lover’s Market go public one day, the Coppin brothers, and Actis will be rewarded handsomely.

Records.

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