Raymond Ackerman (
10 March 1931 - ) is a
South African businessman, best known for founding the Pick 'n Pay
supermarket group, of which he is still (
as of 2005) the chairperson. He is also well known for his
philanthropic activities.
After graduating from the University of Cape Town with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, he joined clothing group Ackermans in 1951 at the age of 20 as a trainee manager. Ackermans had been founded just after World War I by his father, Gus.
When the Ackermans group was later bought by competitor Greatermans, Ackerman was offered a position at Greatermans in Johannesburg. In the early 1950s, food retailing supermarkets first began to appear on the scene in South Africa. Ackerman persuaded Greatermans to follow this trend and in 1955 he was put in charge of starting its Checkers supermarkets.
Ackerman won the Outstanding Young South African award in 1965, along with Gary Player and by 1966, at the age of 35, he was the managing director of 85 Checkers stores. However, he was fired in the same year; Ackerman himself feels the cause was jealousy by the owners of the Greatermans group, as Ackerman's supermarkets were making more money than the rest of Greatermans.
In response, using his severance pay and a bank loan, Ackerman bought three stores in Cape Town trading under the name Pick 'n Pay. Under his leadership, Pick 'n Pay eventually grew into one of Africa's largest supermarket chains, with a twenty thousand million Rand turnover (2003 figure) and more than 313 supermarkets, 14 hypermarkets and 157 franchised outlets. The Pick 'n Pay Group employs more than 30 000 people in several Southern African countries and Australia.
Ackerman has been described as "a passionate advocate of consumer choice" and has fought many battles with the South African government (both pre- and post-1994) in his attempts to free up the highly regulated South African fuel industry.
Ackermann is married to Wendy and has four children. He received an honourary Doctorate in Law from Rhodes University in 1986 and an honourary Doctorate in Commerce from the University of Cape Town in 2001.
He was voted 79th in the Top 100 Great South Africans (see List of South Africans) in 2004.