One thing you can say about SPAR retailers: they are passionate about retail.

I first encountered SPAR in Johannesburg, where some Greek store owners ran superb businesses. The Northcliff and Greenside stores were memorable. More recently, the SPAR in Broadacres has impressed me. Its catering section is as good as anything found in a hotel.

Unlike the centrally controlled supermarket chains, SPAR’s strength lies in its independent retailers. They are not technically franchisees. They are members of the SPAR Guild, operating under a voluntary trading model that gives independent retailers considerable autonomy.

It is an unusual arrangement. SPAR supplies the infrastructure, buying power, distribution and brand. The retailer supplies the entrepreneurial energy.

Judging by some of the stores I encounter in the Western Cape, the retailers haven’t forgotten what retail is about.

They know their customers. They promote specials aggressively. Some have their own apps. They run community noticeboards and loyalty schemes. They know that a supermarket is not merely a warehouse with tills at the exit.

The curious thing is that the people at the top of SPAR seem to have had rather more difficulty keeping their shelves stocked.

On Monday, chairman Mike Bosman and deputy chair Shirley Zinn resigned with immediate effect. Lwazi Koyana has stepped in as interim chairman while a permanent chairman is found. It is the latest change at a company that has had more than its share of boardroom movement.

The SPAR model is one of its great strengths. A 2025 Supreme Court of Appeal judgment described SPAR as a wholesaler supplying independent Guild retailers, with the Guild established to facilitate, promote and regulate the voluntary trading system.

The shopkeeper is the entrepreneur. SPAR is supposed to make the entrepreneur better.

That sounds almost quaint in an age when listed companies are expected to become international groups, buy things in foreign countries and produce a strategy document thick enough to stop a door.

SPAR did all three.

The result has been expensive.

The group has been retreating from its international adventures. Poland, Switzerland and the UK are now classified as discontinued operations. In 2025, discontinued operations contributed to a loss of about R6.1bn.

Meanwhile, the South African business has had its own problems.

The infamous SAP implementation at the KwaZulu-Natal distribution centre is a good example of what happens when corporate machinery gets in the way of the people actually selling the groceries. SPAR estimated that the botched implementation cost R1.6bn in lost turnover and R720m in lost profit in 2023.

That is quite a lot of groceries to lose because a computer system didn’t behave itself.

The latest numbers are hardly comforting.

For the six months to March 2026, revenue from continuing operations increased 3.6% to R67.5bn. Operating profit, however, fell 45.3% to R740.5m. Operating margin dropped from 2.1% to 1.1%, while headline earnings per share fell 53.9% to 199.9 cents. Net debt rose to R7.3bn.

In other words, SPAR can still sell a great deal of groceries. It is just finding it considerably harder to turn them into profits.

That brings the discussion back to the listing.

SPAR was listed on the JSE in 2004 after being unbundled from Tiger Brands. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. In its earlier years as a listed company it delivered impressive growth.

The more interesting question is whether a business built around independent entrepreneurs benefits from being managed like a conventional listed conglomerate.

Public companies like growth. Management teams like acquisitions. Investors like earnings. Boards like strategy.

And somewhere between all those requirements, a good supermarket can become surprisingly complicated.

SPAR’s executive remuneration is another reminder of the difference between the shop floor and the boardroom. Chief executive Angelo Swartz’s total remuneration for 2025 was about R18.2m.

That is a lot of rolls, milk and chicken.

It is also about 169 times the remuneration of SPAR’s lowest-paid employee, according to reporting based on the company’s annual report.

The independent retailer, meanwhile, still has to get up early tomorrow morning and make sure the hot food is ready.

There is a temptation, when a share price falls and profits come under pressure, to change the strategy, change the executives and change the chairman.

There is, of course, a tempting solution. Take SPAR off the JSE. If the public market has become such an uncomfortable place for a business whose real strength lies with independent retailers, perhaps it should return to private ownership.

Except that delisting is not a magic trick.

The debt does not disappear when the share listing does. SPAR would still have to service its borrowings, and somebody would have to buy out the existing shareholders. With the share price already battered, that would not be a cheap exercise. A private buyer would be taking on a sizeable balance sheet at precisely the time when SPAR is trying to repair it. The shareholders might have to sell for a song. The lenders would still want their money.

So SPAR is caught in an awkward middle ground. It may be too unwieldy for the stock market and too heavily indebted for a graceful escape from it.

Perhaps that is the real price of becoming a listed conglomerate: getting out can be almost as difficult as getting in.

The irony is that the people at the counter appear to have held on to the SPAR idea rather better than the people in the boardroom.

The retailers know what they are selling. They know their customers. They know that a good supermarket is a local business, not an international strategy.

The corporate SPAR has spent years discovering that lesson the expensive way.

So perhaps it is time to stop asking whether SPAR should be bought, sold, delisted or restructured.

Perhaps it should simply become more like the businesses it was created to serve.

That might be the best way of getting the SPAR back into SPAR. For a company whose business is selling groceries, it may be time to stop moving the top dogs around and concentrate on the people actually filling the baskets.

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