사업 성찰: 마감 후: 울워스 대 베이어스 – 소매업에서의 기업 권력의 윤리

Look under the hood and things can get pretty murky. Kees Beyers told me how Woolworths, in particular, had treated him and his chocolate company, after he sought partnerships with other retailers.

When I go into some of our big retailers, Woolworths or Checkers or Pick n Pay, I often wonder why they spend so much money trying to convince us of things that are not related to shopping.

Why does Woolworths, the main culprit here, spend so much time talking about how their supply chain is “ethical” and “sustainable”.

The obvious answer is that they want to make you feel good about yourself when you’re in that store.

Most of us don’t have the time to really check how true that is, we just look at the glossy image and try to finally move past the snacks aisle.

But look under the hood and things can get pretty murky.

On Tuesday evening Kees Beyers, the founder and owners of Beyers Chocolates told me on The Money Show about how Woolworths, in particular, had treated him and his company (I’m indebted to the kind After The Bell reader who hit the email button and provided Beyer’s contact details).

He supplied Woolworths with chocolates for 34 years, and in particular, made the Chuckles brand.

On his telling, after Woolworths had been quite aggressive with him, he came across a smaller chocolate factory that was for sale and decided to buy it. Then he used that factory to make other products for other chains, like Checkers and Pick 'n Pay.

So, there was a completely different supply chain for a completely different product.

If I had been him, I would have done the same, it’s always a bad idea to be beholden to just one customer. Anyone in their right mind would advise a business like that to find more customers.

But Woolworths, being all “ethical” and “sustainable”, had a problem with this.

Beyers says that in one meeting with them, it was put to him quite simply, that “we’ve bankrupted companies for what you’re doing here”.

Another time he was told, by an official from Woolworths, that “We will use you as an example to other suppliers”.

Then he says a particular person (he names them in the interview, a sign of how personal this has become) sent him a request for the financials of his business. He wanted to know details about the repayments on his investment in a new factory.

Beyers believes that “the intent was there to actually close us down”.

Shortly afterwards Woolworths cancelled all its contracts with him, which meant that the client responsible for more than half of his business just disappeared.

Just as he had started to invest in a new facility.

So, if the intention was to “close us down”, they were able to achieve it.

Beyers’ attempts to get help went nowhere. He tried the office of the CEO, then the office of the Chair. And did not even get an acknowledgement that his communications had been received.

You can imagine how he must feel. He’s worked closely with this company for 34 years and it ends like this. With his 700 workers now out of jobs.

When invited onto the radio to discuss this, Woolworths did what all cowardly corporations do. They refused to come and answer direct questions in front of their customers.

Instead they sent a statement saying that “any implication that Woolworths acted unfairly is flatly denied”. And of course they say that while Beyers was told in September 2024 that they would terminate their relationship that only happened three months later in January 2025.

And then there is a slightly curious paragraph: “We are deeply saddened to learn that Beyers is facing liquidation, this is an outcome that is extremely unfortunate, but one for which Beyers, and Beyers alone, will need to take full responsibility.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but that last sentence is a bit of a break from the usual bland corporate-ese that we have become used to.

It’s very rare to see corporate language actually assigning blame, especially for the closure of a business and the jobs that are going with it.

Under normal circumstances I would expect something like “Woolworths is saddened to hear Beyers is facing liquidation but we cannot be held responsible for this”.

You might see it differently but that statement that “Beyers and Beyers alone, will need to take full responsibility” perhaps confirms Kees Beyers’s claim that this got “personal”.

Or worse, that he was being used “as an example to other suppliers”.

It’s true that I’ve picked on Woolworths slightly here (if you are going to advertise how “ethical” and “sustainable” you are, you are setting yourself up as a target) but I’m sure the same happens with all the other big chains.

I know people who used to grumble about how Raymond Ackerman negotiated with suppliers, back when he was building up Pick 'n Pay.

When current Shoprite CEO Pieter Engelbrecht boasts about keeping in-store inflation at 0.7%, it’s not just because his group runs so efficiently.

It’s also because they’re able to really put pressure on suppliers, regardless of whether they make chocolates, biscuits or water-pistols.

And one of the sad facts of this saga is that if they (big retailers) didn’t treat their suppliers like that, you and I would probably shop somewhere else. Somewhere where they do do that. DM