Chandarana Foodplus Supermarket is the third largest supermarket in Kenya with over 40 stores sitting behind Naivas Supermarket and Quickmart stores respectively. Its head office is located on the third floor of the Lenana Place building in Nairobi City.
Aside from being one of the big fours in the retail sector, Chandarana Supermarket is also among the oldest supermarkets in Kenya. Its first store opened one year after Kenya gained Independence in 1964. Since then the stores have maintained a clean reputation and they have always kept the customer as their priority. Despite running for almost six decades, the Asian-owned supermarket has never been in the limelight for the wrong reasons.
So with all said and done who is the man behind the establishment of this giant store? In our feature, we tell the story of the Chandarana Food Plus owner.
Who Owns Chandarana Foodplus Supermarket?
The supermarket was founded in 1964 by the late Shantilal Mulji Thakkar, who established his first grocery store at Highridge Shopping Center in Parklands. At the time things were a bit different when it came to retail, instead of customers picking what they needed, Shantilal used to do that for them and handed their items over the counter.
When he opened the store his target market was the Asians who had settled in Parklands. After a few years he had established his name in the area and those who were lucky to find him when he was still strong to do business, remembers him standing outside his shop wearing a white shirt with a cigarette swinging from the side of his mouth.
The retail shop boasts a variety of the best Indian foods and spices and this is one of the key factors that has kept the store unique and profitable for all these years.
Handing the Business to His Sons.
After running the business for years, Shantilal handed over the business to his three sons, Anil, Sanjay, and Dipin who he had coached on how to run a business since they were young. The new leadership of the three sons saw the retail store diversify from selling Indian food and Spices only to selling other foreign and local products.
On top of that, the new team of sons also decided to expand from Indian residential areas and move to more cosmopolitan areas like the leafy suburb of Karen, Lavington as well as Muthaiga. The late Shantilal started with only 12 employees and 500 products but currently, the store has created over 500 employments in Kenya and the products they are selling are over 20,000.