Johannesburg, South Africa, 25 June 2026 – CA&S Group (“CA&S” or “the Group”) today announced the acquisition of a controlling shareholding in Pantry Club, a South African technology- enabled commerce and fulfilment business.
The investment is another step in CA&S Group’s strategy to build a broader route-to-market ecosystem that supports the evolution of commerce in Africa. While retail across the continent remains predominantly physical, consumer shopping behaviour is changing. People are discovering, engaging with and buying products across more channels, including stores, apps, marketplace platforms, brand-owned sites and social media.
For brand owners, this creates both opportunity and complexity. Growth increasingly depends not only on in-store availability, but on the ability to shape how people discover, educate themselves about and engage with brands online, before converting that demand into orders, payments and reliable fulfilment.
Pantry Club adds this capability to the CA&S Group platform.
The business provides an integrated technology and fulfilment solution that supports the commerce journey from digital ordering and payment through to stock management, pick and pack, delivery allocation, last-mile fulfilment and reporting. Its operating model has been built for South African market realities, including areas where conventional e-commerce models are often difficult or costly
to serve.
More than 80% of Pantry Club deliveries are completed into township and emerging-market communities, giving the business distinctive capability in reaching consumers beyond the traditional suburban e-commerce base.
Duncan Lewis, CEO of CA&S Group, said the investment reflects the Group’s disciplined expansion into adjacent capabilities that strengthen its relevance to clients and create additional growth opportunities.
“CA&S has always focused on helping brands reach consumers and shoppers through effective routes to market. That remains our core purpose. What is changing is the number of places where shopping journeys now begin and end,” said Lewis.
“Physical retail remains critical across Africa, but it is increasingly part of a wider connected commerce environment. Pantry Club gives us technology and fulfilment capability that allows us to support clients across more of that journey.”
The Pantry Club investment follows CA&S Group’s recently announced strategic investment in The Digital Media Collective (“TDMC”), a specialist digital marketing and e-commerce agency. Together, the two investments strengthen CA&S Group’s ability to support clients from digital engagement and demand generation through to ordering, payment, fulfilment and measurable sales. TDMC adds capability in digital strategy, content, performance marketing and e-commerce platforms, while Pantry Club adds the operational infrastructure required to fulfil digital and direct commerce at scale.
“This is not a standalone investment in e-commerce,” said Lewis. “It is part of a broader vision to build a connected commerce ecosystem for Africa. The opportunity is to help brands reach people wherever buying decisions are happening, and then execute reliably from engagement through to fulfilment.”
Pantry Club supports a range of commerce models, including brand-owned sites, employee purchasing platforms, closed-community channels, social commerce initiatives and fulfilment-enabled brand campaigns.
Pantry Club will continue to operate under its existing leadership, while gaining access to CA&S Group’s broader ecosystem, client relationships and growth platform. “The future of commerce in Africa will not be defined by one channel,” Lewis said. “It will be defined
by the ability to connect physical retail, digital engagement, data, payment and fulfilment in ways that work for local market realities. This investment strengthens CA&S Group’s ability to participate in that future.”