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Choppies

Botswanan grocery retailer

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ5104860
Source-derived summary

Choppies Enterprises Limited is a Botswana multinational supermarket retailer headquartered in Gaborone, Botswana. The retailer initially sold only food-based goods (both fresh groceries and wholesale long-life foods) and other fast-moving consumer goods. By 2024, Choppies had 161 stores in 4 countries.

Choppies became a listed company on the Botswana Stock Exchange on January 26, 2012, and is a constituent of the BSE Domestic Company Index with an approximate market capitalization of P2.4 billion as of December 20, 2012.

History

Choppies was founded in 1986 with a single store, Wayside Supermarket (Proprietary) Limited, in Lobatse by the Chopdat family. A second store was opened in 1993.

By 1999, the company operated only two stores. Since then, it has grown to become a dominant player in Botswana’s fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry. The management team includes founding members Mr. Farouk Ismail, the current Deputy Chairman, and Mr.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Choppies” is botswanan grocery retailer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Choppies, Botswanan and grocery, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2024, 2012, 1986, 1993—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1986. For this dossier, Choppies, Botswanan and grocery is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “botswanan grocery retailer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5104860. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2024, 2012, 1986 and 1993.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Choppies”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Choppies primary sources, Choppies archive and Choppies research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Choppies”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Choppies” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.