Shoprite has agreed to acquire 100% of Vida e Caffè, the coffee and quick-service chain of about 400 corporate and franchise outlets, under a share purchase agreement signed on 20 August and disclosed alongside annual results on Tuesday. The transaction remains subject to conditions precedent and regulatory approval. No price was given.
It is the second purchase outside groceries in a month. Shoprite completed the acquisition of an initial 51% of R&A Cellular, a payments and point-of-sale technology business serving spaza shops and micro-merchants, on 14 August, also without disclosing terms. Chief executive Pieter Engelbrecht described both as relatively small but strategic, and neither was categorisable under JSE listings requirements.
The results underpinning them were driven by volume rather than price. Merchandise sales from continuing operations rose 7.2% to R270.8bn in the 52 weeks to 28 June, adding R18.1bn, while internal selling price inflation in Supermarkets RSA averaged 0.8% against the 3.9% food and non-alcoholic beverages rate reported by Stats SA. Shoprite and Usave recorded deflation of 0.1% and 0.6% respectively. The group sold 110-million products priced at R5.
| Measure | FY2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Merchandise sales (continuing) | R270.8bn | +7.2% |
| Revenue | R274.8bn | +7.1% |
| Trading profit | R16.2bn | +8.4% |
| Headline earnings per share | 1,532.5c | +12.2% |
| Net income | R8.08bn | +6.4% |
| Total dividend | 873c | +12% |
| Sixty60 sales | R25.5bn | +34.5% |
| Supermarkets RSA sales | R228.7bn | +7.1% |
| Supermarkets Non-RSA sales | — | +11% |
| Internal price inflation (Supermarkets RSA) | 0.8% | — |
Trading profit rose 8.4% to R16.2bn and headline earnings per share 12.2% to 1,532.5c. A final dividend of 566c took the total for the year to 873c, ahead of the 855c median in a Bloomberg survey. Sixty60 sales rose 34.5% to R25.5bn, adding R6.6bn, while Checkers and Checkers Hyper grew 10% against 4.3% at Shoprite and Usave.
Vida was founded on Kloof Street in Cape Town in 2001 and has been majority owned by private equity firm Athena Capital since 2013. It opened its 400th outlet in June and has targeted 500 by 2028. The chain trades in Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Ghana, Mauritius and Eswatini, owns the Sweetbeet restaurant brand, and sells through Uber Eats and Mr D alongside its own app.
What Shoprite is buying is formats it does not operate. Vida runs high-street cafés, drive-thrus, corporate sites, airport outlets and forecourt counters, and it places coffee bars inside other retailers’ premises, including Spar, Kwikspar and Exclusive Books stores, and Shell service stations. None of that footprint is reachable through a supermarket estate.
The arrangement also creates an awkwardness. Spar, a direct competitor, sells Vida coffee inside its own stores while separately rolling out its own in-store coffee offer. On completion those counters would be supplied by a brand owned by Shoprite. Whether Vida’s partnership contracts survive a change of control is the principal commercial question the deal raises.
Forecourt convenience retail grew 4% to R40bn in 2024, according to Trade Intelligence’s Forecourt Retail Report 2025/2026, and every large grocer is pursuing it. Pick n Pay has piloted Pick n Pay Go off a Vivo Energy partnership first tested in Botswana. Woolworths is expanding Foodstop and investing in dark stores for Woolies Dash. Food Lover’s Market-owned FreshStop, with more than 300 sites, co-locates with Seattle Coffee.
R&A Cellular targets a different gap. The informal retail economy has been valued at between $46bn and $61bn, roughly R740bn to R985bn, and Shoprite has no supermarket route into it. Selling airtime, electricity, data and card payments through terminals in spaza shops gives the group a transaction relationship with retailers it competes against.
Both deals remain marginal against a group that ended the year with 174,430 employees and 2,839 shops in Supermarkets RSA, a division contributing 84.5% of sales. Their significance lies in direction rather than size.