Neil Schreuder, Shoprite Group

When you go into Checkers these days, you’ll be sharing the store with an army of shelf pickers, haring up and down the aisles with their Android shopping lists and scanners and loading everything into brown bags. Outside, delivery drivers on bikes are purring off to homes and offices, all of which will be less than 60 minutes away.

The reason the company can get your groceries to you so quickly is partly because it has 3 000 stores, and knows that it has a shop within five minutes of 80% of the population. It’s been a wild success, and, as it says, contributed to the business’ 150% growth last year.