Sefalana continued with its expansion drive in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector on Friday when it opened doors to its 35th Shopper store in Ramotswa.
It is also the 68th store across all Sefalana stores which include cash and carries across the country.
Speaking at the opening of the Shopper store which comes with a liquor store, Sefalana Group Managing Director (MD), Chandra Chauhan said the company was excited to open its 35th store in Ramotswa with the project having started three years ago.
The building in which Sefalana opened its store is owned by the village cooperative, and according to Chauhan, Sefalana had to invest around P9 million to build a new structure suitable to its standards.
“What we wanted to achieve here is the private partnership with the Co-operative society, the building was built by Sefalana on behalf of the Co-operative. The Co-operative owns the building,” said Chauhan.
Chauhan said over the next 15 years, Sefalana will only pay the Co-operative ground rent which will help Sefalana recover some of the costs that have been spent.
Chauhan emphasized that the Sefalana policy is to rent from Batswana.
“We do not build too many stores for ourselves, our business is to run stores, not to build properties,” said Chauhan.
Out of the 35 retail stores that Sefalana operates, Chauhan said only the Setlhoa store building is owned by the company.
The new store has created 68 job opportunities for the locals with Sefalana now employing close to 3600 workers.