Top award for Choppies

The Choppies group of supermarkets has been named as the winner in the category “Outstanding Transformational Business” in the Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship (AAE) by the African Leadership Network.
The AAE are a prestigious awards programme that identifies four of the leading entrepreneurs in Africa each year. Over the last seven years, this program has awarded over $1.8-million in prizes to 35 of the leading entrepreneurs in Africa.
Choppies was competing against companies from 33 countries, three of these companies, Bidco (Kenya), Aksal (Morocco), and Choppies (Botswana) reached the finals in the category for Transformational Business. Choppies was shortlisted in this category for the transformation the organisation has caused in retailing in this part of the world, transforming the lives of rural Botswana, women, people living with disability, and a revolutionary change in a number of employee-related metrics. Choppies also won the People’s Choice awards for this category which was conducted by public online voting.
Choppies CEO Ramachandran Ottapathu said, “We treat this as a stamp of approval on our efforts in giving better value to our consumers and our community at large. What we have done in transforming our organization and our leadership model was much superior to the other businesses that we were competing with. The secret behind this win was ethical leadership, hard work and dedication to the core. We are proud to be the first Botswana-born brand to be a winner at the African Awards for Entrepreneurship.”
Choppies have supermarkets across the provinces of Northwest, Limpopo, Gauteng, and Free State, and employ 3 000 people in SA. They have over 100 supermarkets in SA, Zimbabwe, and Botswana.
For more information about Choppies, visit www.choppies.co.bw.