Choppies
Botswanan grocery retailer

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Choppies”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Choppies primary sources, Choppies archive and Choppies research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Choppies”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
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.