Johannesburg — FOOD retailer Pick n Pay, which won two franchising awards last year, is set to expand further in Soweto with its fifth and sixth store opening this month.

Yesterday, the retailer said this move "underscores" its efforts to grow market share in Soweto. Until December 2007, Pick n Pay had no presence in the area.

Pick n Pay CEO Nick Badminton said yesterday the company's move to grow into the mass market was paying off, even though its core remained in higher-income areas.

"Judging from research at our disposal, we can say that our customer base is growing well within this segment. Over the period 2007-08, the number of Pick n Pay shoppers within the LSM (living standards measure) 4-7 segment grew from 4,1-million to 4,8-million , an increase of 18%."

Its first store opened in December 2007 when entrepreneur Titus Malambo opened the first Pick n Pay Family Franchise store in Bara City.

The store, the first to be converted to a Pick n Pay Family store after the group said in October 2007 that it would transform about 70 underperforming Score stores into franchises, has more than doubled turnover.

Three Pick n Pay family stores have since opened -- in Kliptown, Orange Farm and Protea Glen last year. Turnover from each converted store has doubled.

This month, the retailer opened stores in Dobsonville and in Protea North, which were showing encouraging signs.

Of the initial 70 Score stores, 29 conversions are complete and, next year, the company plans to convert a further 25 stores to complete the programme. The only stores remaining to be converted in the 2011 financial year will be a few in Botswana. The company has converted nine Score stores to Boxer stores and plans to convert a further four stores to the Boxer brand next year.

The conversion programme forms part of Pick n Pay's planned R1,4bn capital programme for this year.

In the process of the conversion, many of the Score stores have doubled turnover after being converted.

The stores have also benefited black entrepreneurs as managements were turned into shareholders, and the number of employees also increased.

Pick n Pay said that, since the programme had started, its emerging market division, which focuses on developing and growing black entrepreneurs for the group's franchise division, had been converting an average of three Score stores a month into Pick n Pay Family Franchise stores.