“He was the most humble man I had ever met.”
These are the sentiments of a hartseer Lotus River mom as she reflects on the death of retail tycoon and the founder of Pick n Pay, Raymond Ackerman, who passed on Thursday.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce the death at the age of 92 of visionary South African and founder of Pick n Pay, Raymond Ackerman,” his family confirmed in a statement.
Well-known community worker Beryl Williams, 56, felt hartseer waking up to the news of Ackerman’s death, saying his company helped her build a home and life for her family.
In October 1984, the lady fondly known as Aunty Girly was 17 years old and had just given birth to her son Paul, when she received an opportunity to work as a packer for Pick n Pay.
“I was a single mom and my parents had just divorced. I left school to go and work and was lucky to be recruited by Pick n Pay,” Beryl said.
“We were training for the grand opening of the new store at Constantia Village and that is when I first met him. He was so kind and humble and came to encourage us.”
The Ackerman family founded Ackermans stores after World War I.
Raymond founded Pick n Pay in 1967, along with his wife Wendy, after buying four stores innie Kaap.
From the outset, he lived by the core values that the “customer is queen, that we must treat others as we would wish to be treated, and that doing good is good business”.
These values have successfully guided the business for over 56 years, and today the Pick n Pay Group serves millions of customers in more than 2 000 stores across South Africa and seven other African countries.
While staff were trained to always care for their customers, Beryl said this was a virtue the Ackerman family extended to their employees.
“Back in the day we were made to wear doekies at the tills and the other girls asked me to say something. Mrs Ackerman was there one day and I politely went up to her and told her we cannot anymore, because the doekies were making us hot and sweaty,” she recalled.
“The next day the manager announced that we could all remove our doekies and there I was with pantihose in my plaits!”
In 2012 Beryl was invited to a larney ceremony at the Mount Nelson Hotel, where she received an Unsung Hero award and R10 000 from Ackerman towards her feeding schemes.
Ackerman was a compassionate employer and a committed philanthropist. Even in the 1960s, he was determined to promote all employees to managerial positions, in defiance of apartheid laws which forbade it.
Beryl added: “I received promotions and training to improve myself, and he even attended our graduation ceremonies and capped us.
“He even had a loan facility where you could make a loan from the company to buy a house and pay it back through your wages. I became a homeowner at just 20 years old.”
Over the years Beryl worked as a till packer, cashier and in the fresh foods section. She retired in 2017.
Ackerman is survived by Wendy, his kids Gareth, Kathy, Suzanne, and Jonathan, as well as 12 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.