The Woolworths South Africa story

The first Woolworths store opened its doors to the public on 30 October 1931 in what was the dining room of the recently closed-down Royal Hotel in Plein Street, Cape Town. The store was co-founded by Max Sonnenberg and his son Richard Samuel. Max wanted to create a store that offered high-quality goods at affordable prices. “The great moment arrived, and we opened our doors. The response was such that we had to get police to control the crowd, and I knew that my future career had been settled,” Max Sonnenberg recalled the opening. The store sold a wide range of products such as haberdashery, jewellery and tools. Customers could not walk around the shop and browse but were assisted from behind the counters.

The choice of the name originated from Max’s friendship with a London shipper and financier, Percy (P.R.) Lewis. Percy was a director of Australasian Chain Stores (ACS), a London shipping and finance house established to service the rapidly expanding Australian business founded by W.T. Christmas. London shippers often provided finance and selected goods, without physical inspection, before dispatching them to their clients. Given that the (now defunct) American company F.W. Woolworth had no desire to trade in Australia, Father Christmas – as he was known – adopted the name for his new enterprise. Percy proposed to Max that ACS could add to Father Christmas’s order sheet and send a scaled-down quantity of each item in Australia to South Africa. Max adopted the name for his store. Two years later, a South African court ruled that sufficient goodwill had been established to dismiss an injunction brought by the American retailer against the use of the name.

The first store was an immediate success. To expand, Max’s friend Elie Susman put up the money and became his business partner. In 1934, a second branch opened in Durban, with one entrance in West Street and another in Gardiner Street. In 1935, two branches opened – Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg. Eli helped manage the stores in Transvaal. In 1936, Woolworths listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, with shares costing 1 pound each.

By the late 1940s, South Africa’s textile industry was dominated by a focus on blankets. Woolworths wanted to change this, and in 1952, the company expanded its business by investing in textile industries and its mills. Woolworths signed an agreement with the British store chain Marks & Spencer in 1947. In 1952, Woolworths expanded to high-quality clothing.

In 1960, Woolworths became one of the first large retailers to speak out against apartheid. When the government passed the Amenities Act, which outlined that there must be separate amenities for different races, Woolworths refused to have separate amenities on their premises. “It was the result of a deeply based value system that to this day directs our actions. ‘Doing what is right, not what we are told,’ said former Woolworths CEO Simon Susman.

1960 – Woolworths became the first retailer in South Africa to stamp use-by dates on food.
1970 – Woolworths became the first South African retailer to introduce sell-by dates on food packaging.
1982 – Woolworths discontinued its Princess food brand and began promoting its Woolworths brand.

1983 – All Princess clothing labels were replaced with Woolworths’ private label.
1986 – Woolworths becomes the first South African retailer to recycle clothes hangers. This leads to the formation of Hangerman, which provides meaningful employment for physically and mentally challenged people.
1987 – Woolworths opened its first store outside of South Africa in Francistown, Botswana.
1990 – Woolworths’ new till system uses barcode scanning.
1994 – Woolworths launched its store card.
1996 – The first Woolworths clothing store opens in Lesotho.

2000 – The first Woolworths Food Stop opened its doors in September at Oranje Convenience Centre in Cape Town. This was the first time a major local retailer had entered the 24-hour convenience retail market.
2000 – Woolworths formed a joint venture with Barclays Bank (FNB) to provide Woolworths clients with financial products and services.
2001 – Woolworths online shopping was launched, known as In The Bag.
2003 – Elizabeth Dlamini Khumalo became the first black woman on the Woolworths board.
2009 – Woolworths underwent a brand refresh with a new logo and typefaces – WFutura and WBodoni.
2015 – Zyda Rylands appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Woolworths South Africa.
2017 – Zyda Rylands becomes the first recipient of the World Retail Congress Woman of the Year award.
2018 – Woolworths launched in-app shopping.
2020 – Woolworths launched Dash, a same-day delivery service.

The retail giant specialising in food, fashion, beauty, and homewares, commonly known as Woolies, has come a long way from that former dining hall. In the year ending 30 June 2024, it had a group revenue of R76.5 billion. Woolworth’s Holdings Limited (WHL) has grown into a leading retail group with a strong presence in sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Woolworths operates 218 full-line stores and 430 stand-alone food stores in South Africa, as well as 64 stores across the rest of Africa. It also operates WCafe, a chain of cafés that range in size from full-service, sit-down-style restaurants to coffee bars with their counters that are built into Woolworths stores. Woolworths now employs about 45,000 workers across 13 countries.

Max Sonnenberg was born on May 3, 1879, in Kaiserslautern, Germany. He is the only son of Lazarus Louis Sonnenberg and Mathilde Strauss. His father was a teacher. Max’s siblings were Isidor, Theodore, Lina (married Rosenblatt), Wilhelm, Seraphina, Betty (married Saul Suzman), Ida (married Ralph Robert) and Jenny (married Oscar Meyer). Ida’s husband was a Germiston pioneer. Jenny was a well-known contralto in South Africa and Europe.

Two of Max’s uncles, Charles and Isaac, immigrated to Griqualand West to join the early diamond mining industry. Max followed them in 1891. Charles was elected to the Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope in 1896. Louis’s family first lived in the village of Madibogo, where he managed a two-room hotel in partnership with S. Solomon & Co. They later moved to Vryburg, where Louis owned a store. After working as a travelling salesman along the railways being built through Bechuanaland and Rhodesia, Max opened a grocery in Bulawayo in 1898.

After the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), Max returned to Vryburg, where he farmed and grew his mercantile career. He married Lillie Isaacs (1887–1963) in 1906. She was the daughter of Samuel Isaacs of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. They had five children, a son and four daughters. Max served as mayor of the town (1919–20) after being elected to the city council in 1912. He was a founder of Bechuanaland Dairies. He persuaded the city to spend £40,000 building a reservoir to mitigate chronic water shortages. During the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, he contributed money to the Vryburg Hospital to buy equipment and built a soup kitchen in which he and his wife both worked. In 1920, Max moved to Cape Town, where he became chairman of the Cape Chamber of Commerce & Industry and founded several companies, including Woolworths (Pty) Ltd.

Max had a long career in public life. From 1919 to 1921, he represented Bechuanaland in the Parliament of South Africa as a member of the South African Party. From 1925 to 1938, he was a member of the Cape Provincial Council. In 1938, he returned to Parliament as a United Party representative for the constituency of South Peninsula, in which capacity he served until 1949, when he retired from politics. During his second tenure in Parliament, Max mainly focused on commercial and industrial issues. After he settled in Muizenberg and began representing a constituency on the coast, he became interested in marine issues and offered his help to the fishermen of False Bay. He served on a parliamentary commission that considered the founding of a maritime college and contributed a significant sum of money toward setting up such a school. However, nothing came of the project. He established the Max Sonnenberg University Trust to provide Field Marshal Smuts Scholarships for South African students. The Trust established the Max Sonnenberg Chair of Marine Geoscience at the University of Cape Town.

Concerned about the takeover of the Nazi Party in Germany and its persecution of Jewish people in central Europe, Max campaigned to resettle several thousand German Jews in South Africa in the 1930s. He raised money to support those living in Mandatory Palestine and later Israel, and he founded the club and community centre Rosecourt for Jewish youth in the suburb of Gardens, Cape Town.

Max remained chairman of Woolworths until his death on 28 October 1955 in Muizenberg. Max’s autobiography, The Way I Saw It, was published posthumously in Cape Town in 1957. His son, Richard, a chartered accountant, succeeded his father as chairman. Richard was a member of the UCT Council and sat on the UCT Council Executive. In 1987 he donated money to UCT, which became the seed fund for the UCT Evergreen Fund. Richard registered a patent on a sunblind mechanism. He also designed a tree-shaker/blanket harvester for almond trees and invented a design for an automated fruit-picking device.

In 1942, Max bought the Diemersfontein fruit farm near Wellington as a family retreat. The farm cottages were used to house Italian prisoners of war during World War II. Diemersfontein has remained in the Sonnenberg family. Over the years, the farm grew from a family retreat into a business encompassing a winery, a guest house, conferencing, events, and property development. Richard (1907–1987) took over the farm in the 1950s and became more involved in farming operations. His wife Cecilia GOODMAN (1912-1999), a Cape Town actress and producer, was the co-founder of Maynardville Open Air Theatre. She designed the gardens. The present owners are Richard’s son David and his wife Susan. She is an artist and chorister. David worked overseas for 20 years as a psychologist before returning to South Africa to build the Diemersfontein brand. The family are also involved in encouraging and sponsoring local artists. The first vineyards were planted by Richard in the 1970s, and in 2000 David built his own cellar and started producing award-winning estate wines.