Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. A very warm welcome to you from this beautiful Checkers store in Drakenstein, Paarl in the Western Cape. A store that was long in the making. The site was bought many years ago. We also have here a liquor store and a Little Me down the passage, which I will tell you a little bit more later. I think you've become accustomed to how we do our presentations. I will do a small short overview, and then Anton will give some color to the financial numbers in detail. Then I will end off with a bit of the strategy and what we're currently busy with. The double-digit sales growth over the last six months illustrates that the Shoprite group of companies is very soon gonna become a ZAR 200 billion revenue company.
What was quite pleasing about the results is that the gross profit also grew in double digits, which means we did not have to sacrifice any margin in order to achieve the double-digit sales. We are pleased to say that we equaled last year first six months gross margin of 24.1%. That resulted in a 14.5% growth in trading profit, amounting to a very large number of ZAR 5.4 billion for six months and a trading margin of over 6%. What is interesting is during the COVID restrictions, we all saw a reduction in customer numbers. It is pleasing to show now that we've returned into a positive customer visit of 6%. Now, again, during the restriction period, basket size grew quite substantially because of less frequent visits.
It's still pleasing to note that the basket size still managed to grow by 4.7%. That resulted in a very healthy 4.5% growth in volume. This is quite an important number, not to us only, but to our suppliers, because that is a very important tool for them to contain costs. I will talk about that also later when I talk about the internal inflation. Again, the result of all of these that I've just mentioned resulted in a profitable market share gain of ZAR 3.6 billion, underscored by 34 months of uninterrupted market share gains. I iterate, and I may say it more than once, is that this is across all the brands. It's not a single brand. It may be that this cannot continue forever. It may become a zero-sum game.
As long as our growth results in profitable market share gain, we're happy to talk about it. This result shows a very resilient operational performance, especially from the South African supermarkets. If we take the challenges that we had around COVID and then the civil unrest, it is quite pleasing that we believe Shoprite emerged as a much stronger Shoprite. Supermarkets RSA grew sales by 11.3%. Liquor stores grew by almost 50% because of less closed days this year versus last year. This is almost an emotional part of what I'm gonna say is the operational excellence of what the Shoprite Group achieved during the unrest. It is almost unthinkable that some of those stores that was destroyed completely reopened within six days. To me, that underscores the operational excellence of the Shoprite Group.
I already said I was gonna repeat it maybe more than once, the fact that all supermarket brands grew market share. It is not a one brand story. We believe we are well-positioned for the shift in customer needs as well as the step up required in digital. This graph is an illustration of how the growth in Shoprite outpaced that of the rest of the market for 10 consecutive quarters. Two things, two standouts. The one is, one can see it follows a similar pattern, the Shoprite sales pattern to that of the market. Two standouts is the fact that Shoprite never went into a negative, and the market went into negative twice. One can see towards the last two quarters of the year that the gap actually widened.
A note here maybe is that one of the supermarket groups decided to, for three months, not give their sales numbers to Nielsen for one of their brands. Those numbers were estimated by Nielsen. We believe they are gonna give their numbers again. Our commitment to our customers is this unwavering focus on affordability and accessibility. Shoprite remains the low price champion. Because of the wealth of information we currently have following the ERP system implementation and the level of data that we have on line item profitability as well as the efficiencies gained out of the supply chain assisted us to keep the internal price inflation down to 2.6% versus the overall food inflation at 6.2%.
Another call-out here in terms of if we reference this to the maintenance of the gross margin, is that if you had to add up all the savings on the till slips of our Xtra Savings members, that would add up for the six months to savings to the value of ZAR 4.5 billion. We've been able to give customers the ZAR 4.5 billion in savings, remain the lowest price retailer, and maintain our margin. We will continue to subsidize essential foods. The example here, simply, we've been selling a loaf of bread for ZAR 5 since 2016, and we will continue to do so, selling 1 million loaves of bread a week. We will continue to take retail to the people, whether that is organic, by acquisition as far as possible, or by expanding on our home delivery service.
This is an illustration here just to give context into the relative size of each of the brands as well as where they are positioned in the market. So a very quick call-out. Shoprite, without a doubt, Africa's low price leader, mass discounter. Checkers gives best value in fresh and premium. We've got the hypers, Checkers Hyper with amplified value. Then Usave, the absolute king of budget. If you have a budget, that's where you must shop. Franchise division, where we venture more into the convenience market and also into the forecourt stores. Our unemotional decision about exiting some African markets, I'm not saying it was easy, but it was a business decision we had to take, has left us with a more manageable and a profitable core group of countries.
Very pleasing to say that the non-RSA segment had positive sales of 8.4%. It accelerated in quarter two to 14.4% with a star performance from Zambia over 35%. In constant currency, that relates to 11.4%. Subsequently, Madagascar's transaction has been finalized, the sale of Madagascar, and we're in the final stages with Uganda. We will continue to apply the strict capital allocation to that segment because the countries remain self-funding. I will now hand you over to our Chief Financial Officer, Anton de Bruyn, who will give you, I'm sure, some great color on the detailed financial numbers.
Thank you, Pieter, for that introduction. As in the past, we have included additional information for your reference. I will not deal with that as part of the presentation, but will refer to it for further analysis. When analyzing the financial results, there are two key aspects one has to take into account. We did disclose that Kenya, Uganda, and Madagascar was discontinued during our June 2021 results. We did not show it as discontinued at the end of December, as there was uncertainties around the completion of these transactions. Take into account the discontinued as part of the 2020 results. It was a ZAR 38 million decline in profit. The second aspect was the 231 stores impacted by the civil unrest. We communicated that as part of our June results presentation, where we treat it as a post-balance sheet event.
We now have the numbers as part of our results. I can say that there were 231 stores impacted, of which 186 have now been opened since. 45 is still closed, of which 7 will not open again. The Shoprite and Usave and Liquor brands were affected the most, with 75 stores being closed from a Shoprite point of view, with 11 still not reopened. The Usaves had 51 stores closed, which 39 has opened since. The Liquor stores had 54 closed during that period, with 10 still not reopened. Our OK Furniture business was also impacted, with 35 stores closed during that period. One OK Franchise store will not reopen.
If I then look at the impact from an income statement and balance sheet point of view, we had inventory write-downs of ZAR 968 million. We did claim and raise insurance claim for that full amount. You will see in the cash flow statement we have already recognized ZAR 935 million. Note 20 in our financial pack actually analyzes and shows the detail around that whole insurance claim. There were also one-off civil unrest costs relating to the riots of ZAR 134 million. Items of a capital nature, we've shown property write-offs of ZAR 100 million, where we had our Brookside Mall impacted. We also had across our portfolio of stores equipment write-offs of ZAR 162 million. That total claim is around ZAR 262 million.
That, together with the part of the inventory claim we have not received from our Sasria insurance policy, equates to that ZAR 307 million that you will see on our balance sheet as a trade and other receivable. The group was sufficiently insured for these losses, and we were insured up to a value of ZAR 1.5 billion. On a more positive note, I will now delve into the financial results. Sales of merchandise increased by 10% to ZAR 91.1 billion, and I will deal with that in more detail later in my presentation. Gross profit increased by 10.1% to ZAR 21.9 billion. The ZAR 2 billion increase that we've achieved during the six months was on the back of the higher contribution from the margins of our Checkers and Hyper business.
They constitute now 40% of that segment of the supermarket's RSA sales segment. Pieter spoke a little bit about the efficiencies within our supply chain. We had to take into account the increase in fuel price as well as the higher logistics costs, which our, obviously, our supply chain team could deal with. Thirdly, we saw a further 9 basis points improvement in our shrinkage during the period. Our other operating income increased by 15.6%. We've spoken a lot in the past around growing and increasing our adjacent business units as well as our product partners, as well as our value-added services, and that's what we can see coming through during this six months. We saw a increase in commission received of 12.7%. We also saw from our delivery recoveries almost doubled.
That is from our Sixty60 on-demand business as well as our furniture business. Also included as part of other income is ZAR 100 million received from our insurance sales. Interest revenue declined slightly to ZAR 270 million for the period, and that was really on the back of the net ZAR 170 million decline in our exposures to the U.S. dollar-linked government bonds. Total expenses increased by 9.1% to ZAR 18.264 billion, very much in line with the expense growth we saw in the second half of the 2021 financial year. Excluding the impact of some of these one-off unrest costs, we would've seen an increase in expense growth of 8.3%.
If I unpack some of the major costs within that, employee benefits increased by 7.2%, and that would've been at a faster pace was it not for the net ZAR 98 million in government incentives received dealing with the COVID pandemic as well as the civil unrest during the period. We've added 1,949 new jobs in the 62 new operations or store openings in our supermarkets RSA business. Lastly, we contributed ZAR 36 million during the period to the all-important youth employment scheme as a support for government. Depreciation and amortization increased by 1.4%.
From a property, plant, and equipment point of view, depreciation declined by 2.5% to ZAR 1.1 billion, and that is really on the back of our strategy where we do a lease versus buy, especially in our supply chain environment. Our depreciation on our right-of-use assets increased by 8.3% to ZAR 1.6 billion, and again, that is now where we have replaced our fleet, and we lease our fleet and supply chain assets. Also included in our depreciation on right-of-use is our new store leases as well as the modifications made to those leases. Other expenses increased by 12.3%, of which advertising expense growth was 15.4%.
That was on the back of the return of the liquor business, where we traded 31 more days and had more promotional activity within that area, and also the low base in the prior year. Security costs increased by 10.3%, again impacted by that once-off civil unrest cost, and I do expect to see a better performance in cost growth in the second half. Then thirdly, from an electricity and water point of view, we had an 8.9% increase. That is lower than the double-digit increases we've seen from NERSA lately, and that was on the back of our investment in power-saving services and investments we've made, especially from an LED point of view in our stores and also our solar panel program.
The group will keep on investing in these type of power-saving business ventures. From a trading profit point of view, we increased by 14.5%, and I will deal with that later in my presentation. Exchange rate losses increased to ZAR 127 million, and that was also on the back of our hedging that we had in the past with the U.S. dollar-linked government bonds. For the first time since 2017, we've seen a strengthening and growing currency against the U.S. dollar that has led to those exchange rate losses. Items of a capital nature was ZAR 199 million, and in the annexures, we unpack that in full.
EBITDA increased by 12.9% to ZAR 7.8 billion, and that ratio as a percentage of sales is 8.6%, an improvement from the previous year of 8.4%. If I then look at diluted HEPS increased by 25.2% to ZAR 519.3 cents, and that was really driven through our improvement in our trading profit of 14.5%. We also saw a decline in our finance cost of 6.7%. Also for the first time, we have this profit from our equity investments where that Retail Logistics Fund is our big investment there that realized a profit of ZAR 100 million for us in the first six months.
Adjusted diluted HEPS, I will deal with in the next slide, but increased by 32.5%. All importantly, our dividend increased by 22%. The significance of the increase of the 22% is that in the previous financial year, we managed to increase our dividend by 42%. You will recall that we had a change in dividend policy, where we went from a 2 x dividend cover on diluted HEPS to a 1.75 x. That is really implementing or part of our implementation of our capital allocation model. What is also significant about this dividend is that during the past 24 months, the group has paid more than ZAR 5 billion in dividends, and it really is testament of the strength of the cash flow generation within the group in the current environment.
Speaking about gross margin, trading margin, I will be back in a later slide. The effective tax rate is now within range. During our guidance in the previous financial presentation, we spoke about that 30%-32% tax range. It is a little bit higher than our previous year, but in our base we had the impact of the sale of the DCs to the Retail Logistics Fund. Our guidance is still that we estimate that our effective tax rate will be in that range of 30%-32%. Return on invested capital increased from 11.3% - 13.3%. If we also look at where we were at the end of June, we were at 12.4%, so we are starting to see that steady growth within our return on invested capital as well.
If I then turn to unpacking the diluted HEPS and the adjusted diluted HEPS. We start with a restatement. In the previous year, I spoke about that ZAR 38 million. That's at ZAR 3.2 cents. That is the move from ZAR 427.7 cents to the ZAR 525.1 cents. Just for ease of reference and comparability, we have included also the adjusted diluted HEPS. How we get to that number is we exclude once-off items, the foreign exchange profits and losses, the impact of the Angolan hyperinflation, as well the profit on lease modifications and terminations. The relevant tax impact on those three lines then give us the adjusted diluted HEPS, which we've seen a 32.5% increase year-on-year.
If we then look at sales growth at 10% for total continuing operating segments on a like-for-like basis, 9.3%. Really driven by the supermarkets RSA growth of 11.3%, like-for-like 10.7%. During the period for the twelve months, we've opened 104 stores, excluding the impact of the riot, and we plan to open an additional 94 stores during the next six months. Our space growth for the past six months was 1.9%, excluding the impact of the riot stores. If I then look at the breakdown of the supermarkets RSA segment, within that Checkers and Checkers Hyper brands, we saw again double-digit growth of 11.4%. Included in those sales are also our Sixty60 on-demand sales, where we're now trading from 266 stores, 33 stores more than in June.
Shoprite and Usave increased sales by 7.3%. Shoprite running at 6.8% and Usave at 12.1%. The significance around these numbers is that was during a period where we had the civil unrest. As I shown previously, quite a huge number of our stores were impacted and are still closed. Our LiquorShop business increased sales by 49.8% on the back of opening of 74 stores during the past year. We plan to open another 27 stores after the end of the financial year. We also had 31 more trading days during this period versus the prior year, as a result of the lockdown measures we saw in the prior year as a result of COVID.
On the other businesses, we're very proud to also include now 12 standalone Petshop Science stores, as well as a Little Me. As part of the strategic part that Pieter will deal with, he will give you more color on these new business ventures. The supermarket's non-RSA segment increased sales by 8.4% to ZAR 8.6 billion. The significance about this growth is that it's the first time in 14 consecutive quarters that we've had positive sales growth. This segment is reliant on currency stability as well as commodity prices, and we have seen some of that in the past six months. Affordability remains an issue, and we've seen higher food inflation also in Zambia's case. Zambia improved sales by 35%, but on the back of a 23% sales inflation.
Angola sales in rand terms were still negative, but we have seen recovery signals from a local currency point of view. Our furniture business had a sales decline of 6.5%, and that was really on the back of a very high base of 24.9% sales growth in the prior financial year, and the business was impacted by the civil unrest. From a credit participation point of view, it's really remained stable at around 12.8% for the period. Other operating segments increased by 8.9%, driven through the franchise business, where we saw sales growth of 6.5% and also our Medirite and Transpharm business increasing sales by 16.1%. If we then turn to trading profit, our trading margin increased from 5.7% - 6%.
The strongest performance that the group has had to date in the first half was driven through the supermarket's RSA business, which increased by 16.2% to ZAR 4.8 billion, and our trading margin increased from 6.5% - 6.7%. The trading profit result was achieved through the growth in our gross profit, the contribution of our liquor business, as well as the ETI benefits we received during the period. Supermarkets non-RSA increased trading profit by 5.9%, and the 2.1% is very much in line with the prior year. Our furniture business showed a decline of 27.2% on the back of the decline in sales, but also once-off costs relating to the civil unrest. What is encouraging, however, is our collections during the period.
Our provision of bad debts in terms of IFRS 9 is currently at 44.1%. At the end of June 2021, it was sitting at 49.5%, and in June 2020, it was sitting at 50.5%. Really a good story around the collections and our provision for bad debt. Other operating segments increased profitability by 36.4% on the back of our franchise business and the profitability there, as well as our Medirite and Transpharm business. Net finance cost decreased by 6.7%, and it was mainly driven through the reduction in our finance cost and our borrowings. You will recall in the previous year, we did settle the $250 million U.S. dollar debt that we had.
That came with a once-off ZAR 178 million breakage cost that we obviously didn't have this year. Additionally, we also saw a 17.5% increase in our finance cost relating to our lease liabilities, and that growth is very much in line with what we've seen from a balance sheet point of view for the growth of the lease liability. The finance cost percentage on these lease liabilities is around 8%. If we turn to the balance sheet, for ease of reference, we prepared this slide every time where we compare the assets to the corresponding liability. We've also increased the prior year numbers to see where the major movements were. In terms of our capital allocation strategy, we've added ZAR 2.7 billion of capital spend, and I will unpack that in the next slide.
Our cash and cash equivalents and loans receivable were down from ZAR 15.3 billion - ZAR 10.9 billion. That ZAR 10.9 billion consists of cash of ZAR 8.9 billion and loans to Resilient of around ZAR 2 billion. Our inventories increased by around ZAR 2 billion, and a major shift in our trade and other payables, which I will unpack later around the cutoff, reduced from ZAR 27.6 billion - ZAR 21.8 billion. Our borrowings as a percentage of equity reduced from 27.9% - 22.9%, and it's a little bit outside our range of 25%-30%. During the period under review, we have renewed one of our ZAR 1 billion rand facilities, which means that we still have the ZAR 4 billion rand in medium to longer term debt.
Our capital expenditure increased 63.2% to ZAR 2.7 billion. Included in this capital spend is ZAR 199 million of replacement CapEx relating to the civil unrest. Our capital spend as a percentage of sales is sitting at 2.9%. If I have to exclude the once-off replacement capital spend, as well as the trademarks purchased during the period, to expand our furniture or our franchise hyper brands, the ratio would be around 2.5% of sales, and that is very much in line with the 2.3% guidance we gave in the previous financial year.
If I then move to the pie chart on how we actually did spend our capital, 63.9% was spent on store expansion and growing our bricks-and-mortar model, and that was through land building and leasehold improvements, our store maintenance programs, especially on the fresh end side, and then also new stores. Also to be mentioned is our increase in IT spend of 21.8%, and the significance around this number was that only 3% was spent on maintenance and the rest was spent on accelerating our digital capabilities. We spoke about the point of sale project that we started. We've also done additional Sixty60 enhancements. There are various projects linked to the ecosystem that Pieter will refer to later in our strategy in the strategy piece.
Our guidance for the full financial year is still ZAR 4.8 billion, but that was based on the assumption that it excludes our investments in our trademarks that we purchased. It also excludes the estimated ZAR 1.4 billion on the Masscash transaction, and then also, the RTT On-Demand JV, which we announced in December. If I turn to inventories. Our inventory increased by 10% to ZAR 21.5 billion. The bulk of that increase came within our supermarkets RSA segment, which was really driven by the deterioration of service levels within our South African suppliers, where we had to increase our safety stock to fulfill our needs and our customers, when we look at our internal KPIs with regards to our in-stock levels and on-shelf availability.
We also anticipated a increase in our back-to-school sales coming from a low base in the previous year. What was significant and encouraging to us is that our inventory as a percentage of sales in the supermarkets RSA segment improved from 12% - 11.9%. Our supermarkets non-RSA segment had an increase of ZAR 200 million, and that was really on the back of currency strength. In furniture environment, we also saw a ZAR 200 million increase, and that was more from a point of view that we anticipated certain supply chain issues with imports, and that's why we increased our stock holding within our visual and audio stocks. Other operating segments sitting at 6.5%. Overall, our inventory as a percentage of sales increased from 12.3% - 12.5%.
Still, we are still comfortable from a guidance point of view if we look at the full year result, that we will be able to achieve the 11.5%. Our total cash reduced from ZAR 12 billion - ZAR 5.4 billion, and one has to take into account the impact of cut-off. Due to the fact that we closed on the second of January, there were certain additional creditor payment runs. If we purely go on a comparable basis, excluding the impact of the cut-off, our cash position at the end of December would have been ZAR 16 billion compared to the ZAR 12 billion in the prior year. This will be the last reporting period where we will have these cut-off issues. In June, we will again be on a comparable basis.
As I mentioned previously, we have again renewed our medium-term ZAR 1 billion debt. At the end of the day, we're sitting with a ZAR 4 billion debt within the South African environment. We have, however, reduced our reliance on U.S. dollar debt further, reducing from $78 million - $59 million. During the period under review, we managed to repatriate $17 million of funds from Angola. If we then look at our cash flows, you will see that in the past, we referred to our cash flow statement. A new measure that we have within the operations is looking at free cash flow. Our definition of free cash flow is cash generated after accounting for outflows to support the operations and also maintenance capital. During the period, the group generated ZAR 6.4 billion of normalized free cash flow.
In line with our capital allocation model, we first gave our dividends back to our shareholders. That was the ZAR 1.9 billion, where we also saw an improvement in the payout ratio, as I mentioned before. From a capital expenditure or expanding point of view, we spent ZAR 1.5 billion. I refer you back to our capital spend slide in our investment, improving and growing our sales through our bricks and mortar model, as well as our capital spend on our digital acceleration. That left us ZAR 3 billion for investing. We've done mergers and acquisitions in the form of the completion of our President Hyper transaction. We're looking forward to complete our Masscash transaction in the coming six months, and then also completing the RTT On-Demand transaction. The last in our capital allocation model was the share buybacks.
To date, the group has bought back ZAR 854 million in share buybacks. In line with our capital allocation strategy, it is clear from this slide that the group is generating sufficient cash to actually achieve those targets. If I just conclude on guidance, I've spoken to most of these. Pieter will speak about the supermarket's RSA and non-RSA growth in the past eight weeks. From a tax, CapEx, and inventory point of view, we have dealt with that in the slides. That then concludes the financial portion of the presentation. Back to you, Pieter.
Okay. Thank you, Anton. I think that was very well explained. Some good numbers. Fortunately, this year, you did not have to explain hyperinflation and IFRS 16. All very clear and a very strong balance sheet. If we look at this slide, again, our nine strategic drivers haven't changed much over the last six years. Last year, we amended number eight and nine. The nine drivers didn't change, but our narrative also haven't changed. We're still in the three buckets of the strategy that we want to deliver on. The smarter Shoprite is the first group. Then closing the gap in segments where we under index or where there's still market potential and good growth, and then winning in the long term. The results of today is the outcome of sticking to our plan.
Today, we believe Shoprite is operationally, structurally, and financially a much stronger business. If we take a step back and we look at what we've done over the last five, six years in sticking to our story, it's really a story of a multi-year transformation journey that resulted in a multi-year of market share gains. We're trying to unpack this for you in two-year stints, but it explains a little bit how we stuck to our story and our strategy and had to deliver in those. We would like to just take you back to those things we've done. First, we had to start with the re-platforming of our system of record. We implemented the SAP ERP system as our single system of record.
Now, the level of detail we have these days, down to item level, in terms of enabling us to manage margin, waste, and shrink on item level, have created great decision-making for us. The other thing about an integrated system like this is it does create us the opportunity to deliver on a seamless omni-channel experience for customers. We had to align our operational management in each of the brands so that they have a singular focus on the customer that they serve. Checkers changed a bit of direction, pursuing the more affluent customer, and created more of a food theater, especially in Fresh. A bit of a step change that was required in the South African market in terms of private labels, so that it's just not more of the same. It's really innovative new products. I will cover a little bit of it again with some numbers.
We consolidated our franchise brand, and we integrated them much larger into our supply chain, and we expanded our Western Cape distribution capacity. Transformation came. In the transformation, we had to shift from where we were in the period 2003 - 2013, with a very explosive space expansion to precision retail. Now, originally, the word precision retail was a bit misunderstood. Today, I think all retailers know the importance of data, customer data, and precision retail. Combined with that, what I just said earlier, an integrated single platform to deliver on an omni-channel. We made some significant investment in our digital transformation for our customers. We were late. We were the last to join a loyalty program or launch one, our Xtra Savings program, and today, by far, the largest with over 23 million customers.
Pioneered the on-demand delivery system. Also today, by far, the most preferred and largest with over 2.2 million downloads up to now. We unlocked the supply chain efficiencies. I mentioned last year for the year that our calculated efficiencies in the supply chain amounted to ZAR 500 million. This six months, we calculated around about another ZAR 200 million. Then we continued to close the gaps in key segments. I mentioned private label again. We expanded quite rapidly with the liquor stores. And with that, the most or the fastest-growing in the premium market was the Checkers brand in terms of market share. We moved over to optimization. Through the optimization phase, a smarter Shoprite emerged. In this period, we had unrivaled operational resilience, shown by how we navigated through the pandemic and the civil unrest.
We've invested heavily in price, but yet I wanna remind you that we maintained the margins even though we were the price leaders. We evolved smaller, closer to home store formats to complement these not very nice, fresh, larger stores that we have. We expanded our ecosystem, something also I said a couple of years ago, into alternate revenue streams. Because of the large customer base and the information that we have around customer behavior and needs, we were able to introduce product in financial services like a free bank account and, something where we never played is the media space with Rainmaker and our own virtual cell phone network. We decided, instead of being disrupted by digital upstarts, that we will, disrupt ourselves. Last presentation, we spent some time on ShopriteX, our digital hub, who continues to invest in the digital space.
We consolidated our non-RSA operations. We bolstered our governance and the board, inclusive of an independent chairman, which was a request from many of our shareholders. We ended up with a very strong balance sheet. Now, I say usually it's hard to fix an income statement. Much harder, totally different thing to fix a balance sheet. It's time for us to amplify. Amplify is just quickly a list of what we're busy with right now. What we think will take us into the next two years, will keep us busy is again, on top of the list, a smarter Shoprite. We continue to work on to create a smarter Shoprite. We're embracing digital. We're closing the gap between the segments that we under-index in and also in the premium market. We believe there is still organic growth in the core markets that we're in.
We have partnerships that are working very well for us in well-known customer brands. I'll touch on that again. We have a very clear capital allocation framework, so we're very clear on where we're gonna spend our capital. Then there's something we call a force for good. It's how we look after the planet, our customers, our own people, and our stakeholders, inclusive of you, our shareholders. We will leverage our platform to unlock more value in our ecosystem. Now, I will end with explaining what we mean by our ecosystem. Just to give you a sense of when we decide on what projects to embark on is how they slot in and where and why. A smarter Shoprite, I refer you back to the nine strategic drivers.
We were last to launch a rewards program, and today it's the largest and the best, and we're very proud about it. Of course, it won numerous awards, but it's the power of that data and the customer information that we're most excited about in terms of spotting trends and customer requirements and then be able to deliver on that. That is the advantage that we see in this program, and we're leveraging off that as best as we can. We still believe there's some big benefits in the future for us in that. Our customer-first culture, driving innovation. Now, innovation for us is we deliver what our customers want, and then we build the business around that, not the other way around. One example I'm gonna give is the linking of over 5,000 Xtra Savings deals to the Sixty60 customers and in the app.
It's just one example I'd like to give. As I said, it's the richness of the data and the combination, and I've spoken about it before, of the item data and precision retail that we're excited about. That's the smarter Shoprite that we're talking about. By now it's quite clear that we have embraced digital. The Sixty60 had a fantastic performance, 250% growth in online orders. A very critical stat for us is that a third of the Sixty60 customers are all new to the Checkers brand. A lot of them also shop now in store, experiencing more of the theater that we try and create. It is now by far the largest online app with over 2.2 million downloads.
A critical point is innovation also leads to job creation, and in the South African context, much needed job creation. We continue to invest to extend our lead in this what we call winner takes most. We have formed this joint venture with RTT for that very critical last mile logistical piece. We will continue to invest in this omni-channel, ShopriteX in particular, in a bit of a disruptive way. The on-demand seems to have become a bit of a record race of how quick can you be. All I can say is our quickest delivery from order to delivery has been 11 minutes. Last part around this digital as we are on-demand at the moment is that we do not deliver for free. Therefore, we're not trying to buy unprofitable business.
Carrying on with the subject around closing the gaps in the key segments where we either under index or where there is new opportunity. Checkers remains the fastest-growing grocer in the premium food segment. Never underestimate the importance of the in-store experience if you want to go digital in omni-channel. In that, Checkers have proven its position in the market by gaining more than ZAR 7 billion in market share over three years. We still believe there's headroom in that space to earn a bigger share of that up-market wallet. We now have converted 95 of our stores into the fresh concept, and we would like to do another 57 in the next 12 months. Private label sales participation in the last five years have moved from 13.3% - 18%.
I just want to say again, private label for us is just not more of the same. We innovate, we create new products, we globally find food trends, and therefore, because of a lack of what I say from manufacturers in terms of innovation in food, we've taken that innovation upon ourselves, having launched 695 new products in the last six months. I have spoken about our partnerships with renowned brands with equity, brands that give customer choice, brands that people deliver things on better than we can do. Some of the opportunities that I also referenced, when we started, I mentioned the Little Me shop, is that there are markets that we are already in, but we believe there is standalone opportunities for it.
Therefore, our foray into pet and in baby and in health and beauty with standalone stores, and we have already started to accelerate on that program as and when we get sites available. One of the items that I mentioned under amplify, under that heading, is this force for good. It's our responsibility to look after the environment and our people, and I just gonna call out one or two. We support 103 early childhood development centers, something that the President has mentioned in his speech, is something that we need to do. We're the largest private employer in the country. We've donated over 72 million of surplus food. 50 of our own sites have converted to solar panels. Quite a call-out for me is the 917 refrigerated trailers that we now have on solar instead of diesel.
There are many more of these. We are responsive to when there is disaster. That's why we have our soup trucks. They primarily provide food to school children. Mostly the only meal that they'll see in a day. We also react when there's disaster like flood or fire. That brings me to the explanation of our ecosystem. Here, I wanna start with what is most important is what you see right in the center of this circle, is that everything leverages off our core retail. Our core retail has got its strength because of very strong brands, large customer base, a very solid, large real estate, call it physical footprint, operational excellence, superior supply chain, and the investment in digital together with the platforms that we've created to build off from.
This wealth of information also around our customer, that sits all in the core and gives us the ability to then add all of these around it. You'll see the different blocks, and I hope you can make reference to the original slide where I started with the nine strategic drivers, that this is how we pack these components together. We started with the customer rewards long ago. We had partnership with eBucks and now eventually launched our own in the Xtra Savings program. Our other adjacent categories, some of them are existing, some of them are new. Checkers Food Services also now are more a digital business, has been re-platformed also and shares platform also with the LiquorShop Online. Computicket Travel, the Petshop Science, our Little Me, I mentioned, the baby shop.
I didn't expect that five years ago moms would buy a stroller worth ZAR 30,000 from Checkers, and that is currently what's happening. We've been able to attract a different customer because of this information and the core system that we have. Our product partnerships, I've referred to that, well-known established brands and brings also equity to our consumers and to our brand, supporting choice for customers. The retail media we've been really under index completely. We do see lots of potential in that space. Again, because of the rich customer information. That 23 million Xtra Savings customers, their data, and most importantly, the fact that we frequent with them so often, and we know when they fulfill a transaction, which is very different to an eyeball or paying for a eyeball in terms of marketing. It's the e-commerce and the home delivery.
The Sixty60 is so well-known, I don't have to explain that. But it is also something that was built on the original platform that we created, and now we're adding more and more to it. We will continue to invest in that omni-channel. How do we use this data? We're talking not terabytes anymore, we're talking petabytes of data, but it must make sense. There, over time, we first start with a partnership with dunnhumby, probably eight to nine years ago. We had the SAP ERP system. Yes, we make use of AWS and all these people. ShopriteX we created, and they are now taking more of their data and analytics in-house. We're currently busy with quite a large implementation of our own analytical analysis program. There's the value-added services.
That's not the only section for additional revenue. There's also that part I mentioned on the data side. That's where, because again, of the customer base that we have and the fact that I said to you, innovation to us means give customers what they want first. That enabled us to do things like the k'nect mobile, the virtual network that we've got, our partnership with OUTsurance, the Money Market free bank account, cross-border money transfers, and there's more services that we are busy adding to make the life of our consumers easier, for them to save more time and of course, support it every day with our low prices.
I hope that that brings a little bit of context to you today of what was our program that we have followed for the last six years, how we got there, that we stuck to our program, and eventually we can hopefully illustrate to you more graphically what those nine strategic drivers intends to deliver. Thank you very much for your attention. Now before we're gonna go over to questions, which Anton and I will take, we have created a little virtual walkthrough through a Usave. I have realized that a lot of you, and especially some of our global customers or shareholders, have not been to a Usave and may not be familiar what does it stand for and what does it offer. It is a limited assortment store. It is the best price store in the country.
We're now in 395 communities with that, and it's almost a
One way that COVID has also taught us because we couldn't travel physically, how we could also see what's happening in our stores, how we could address merchandising rules, et cetera. I will give you a few comments while that 30-second video or animation is playing. Thank you once again, and then we will take the questions thereafter. This is an actual store. What you see is what you will see when you visit the store. Always very colorful and bright. You can see merchandising is vertical, big ends, big price points. There's your scratch bins. There's normally your bargain point. It has perishables, but as you can see, it does not have fresh departments in the sense of bakeries and delicatessens. Fruit and veg, they all pre-pack in single price units and carry around 1,800 SKUs.
Also includes a Money Market that has become such an essential service for our customers. That is your very quick view of a typical user.
Pieter, maybe while we wait to take some questions, I think it'd be just good if you take us through our forward-looking statement.
Yeah, I think those are the normally the questions that will come anyway. I have to make a little bit of a apology for my voice. I've been speaking too much lately, sounds like it. So I'm definitely not sick. Supermarkets, RSA is still on a very good momentum. I just wanna call out that remember last year, we didn't have the back to school. We had a fantastic back to school in January and in February, both months. Then also last year, liquor wasn't trading four weeks as we currently do. So that's just a bit of a call-out on that. Inflation is always a question.
Now, none of us, I think, have expected the Ukraine-Russia war thing, and we all do know that, firstly, Russia provides 10% of the world's oil, and Ukraine is quite a big exporter of commodities like wheat and edible oil. So we're definitely gonna have some pressure on that. The opposite of maybe a fuel price increase in South Africa is the benefit of the oil price in a country like Angola. I was there two weeks ago.
I did sit with the minister because I saw there was somebody asked me, "How quick does that benefit get back into the economy?" His answer was immediate, but I'm a little bit more, I wanna say, realistic is I think one must bear in mind that normally the commodity is sold on a six-month futures market, so I think a little bit of a delay benefit, but definitely expecting a benefit in the other commodity prices also affecting the non-RSA segment. The Masscash transaction, we think we're very close. On that, maybe just say, we do believe it will integrate very easily into our business. The structures already exist. What is new is the centralized meat plant.
I think that was also very difficult in the Masscash business to manage. It's something we have to be very cautious of. Also remember that the benefits won't come immediately. We will first have to take the costs. That business have, of course, have now been damaged so quite severely because of not only the unrest but the fact that it's currently not being managed to the level that it used to be. Therefore, there's some equity lost in that. I feel very sorry for the delay that we couldn't get this done quicker because there are quite a number of the small suppliers that now have been affected. The assortment of those stores have been reduced significantly.
Yeah, further, I think, I'm very optimistic where we are currently continuing on that strategy as I tried to explain to you that we've embarked on about six years ago.
Great. Thank you, Pieter. I think the first one is from Funeka of J.P. Morgan. Maybe just elaborate on the market size of the new opportunities that we've seen within Little Me and Petshop Science?
Okay. Baby is around about a ZAR 12 billion category, so there's still a lot of headroom in that space. You would have seen some consolidation in the market recently around baby. Pet is about ZAR 5 billion a market where we currently also weigh on the index. Looking forward to that also from a digital point of view.
Yeah. Funeka, you also asked around the 11.5% inventory sales. Yeah, that is on a group level and not just for RSA supermarkets. There's quite a few questions around Cambridge, but I think you've dealt with that and also in inflation. Obviously also the impact of where we see the Ukraine impact. Maybe just-
Anton, I can say directly, as we sit here today, there are 34 containers that we had to cancel that otherwise would come through the Black Sea. 11 of them comes directly from Ukraine. We could channel or reroute those to different manufacturers. We're still gonna get the stock.
Yeah.
We do understand that, as I said earlier, that Ukraine is a big exporter of especially wheat and edible oil, and that will have an effect on the global market. What we must remember, Anton, is that although this year we've had a record harvest in terms of maize, around about 15.6 metric ton. We have enough maize in the country, but it's the price. It's the international price. It's when it goes onto the futures market. Although we have enough stock, there's not a scarcity of stock, but it's the price that gets affected.
Brian, you had a question around bridging the EBITDA to the diluted HEPS. You must remember, in diluted HEPS, we exclude the impact of the items of capital nature and the impairments that we have there. If you do that reconciliation, you should get that differentiator between EBITDA and diluted HEPS, items of capital nature and the tax impact. Pieter, maybe you can elaborate a little bit more on the President Hyper trademark that we acquired during December.
Yeah. The short logic to that is that sometimes one is oversaturated with a certain brand in a catchment, and therefore for us it's just another lever in terms of adding an additional brand to a catchment that still offers opportunity because I always say some people like red, some like blue, and it's better in such an environment to have another brand added to that catchment than to have more of the same. That's the logic behind it. They run a very good business. They're all big formats for a very specific market segment, which I think we can benefit from.
I think Cristella asked a question that everybody wants to hear is, who are we gaining market share from?
Oh, we don't focus on anybody in particular. I mean, we focus on our customer. What I said earlier that we first deliver what our customers need, and then we build the business around it. We're definitely not focusing on somebody in particular. I think we take market share from everybody.
Good. Thank you. Maybe just there's some questions around Cambridge also coming through from Serene. The branding of those stores will be Shoprite stores. I don't think it's really a delay. It's more of the process we're currently following.
We've had very good interactions with the minister and his office, so we're getting very good support from that point of view. I think, Mohammed also said we aim to complete within the next few months, with the competition authorities. Just around the repurchase, Brian, you also had a question on the repurchase of the shares. We have already repurchased ZAR 550 million in the prior financial year, so year to date, our full program of the repurchasing of the shares were around ZAR 854 million. I hope that clarifies that question. Pieter, I think you have answered this, but the internal inflation, what do you see outlook? Do you wanna commit to a percentage?
The January internal inflation was at 2.5%. I think maybe three weeks ago I would have stuck my neck out for a guidance. We've managed in the last six months to keep it down at 2.6%, the internal inflation. We're really, really doing our utmost because we know that the consumers is under pressure. I was actually shocked when the president said that 46% of our people now live off grant or are grant recipients. We will do our utmost to keep prices down as far as possible. With what's happened now and the price of oil and fuel naturally will have inflationary pressure. Interesting maybe, Anton, is I can mention that you all know that the last six months, fuel went up by 40%. Internally, our fuel only went up by 4%, although we drove more kilometers. Those are the initiatives that we can do to try and keep those prices down.
Pieter, there's been one or two questions, especially around the impact and does the Sixty60 business have a dilutive impact? I know we've communicated to the market in the past that offering an on-demand is profitable, but maybe just speak a little bit about how do you see-
Oh, you mean on the margin?
Yes.
No, it's not, because naturally, some costs or the fixed costs are already covered. Therefore, the sales of that is incremental, therefore it's not margin dilutive.
Okay. Salomé from Perpetua Investments, you ask about the sale and leaseback. In the previous year, we did communicate with regards to the cash flows that were generated through the sale of the three distribution centers to the Retail Logistics Fund, as well as our strategy with regards to converting our fleet and also doing a sale and leaseback on the fleet. There are detailed notes in the prior year financials that actually unpack all the detail and the cash flows generated through that. I'm just gonna see, Pieter, if there's. I don't know. Maybe then as a last question, there's a question from Elmarie: How do you see your data and insights partnerships evolve in ShopriteX? Maybe we can close with that question.
Yeah. As I said, we slowly weaning off our dependency from third parties as we learn how to do that better ourselves. That's why we are implementing that IRI program and we will definitely do more of it ourselves and learn because that is just so much quicker if one has that internally to implement it, but much quicker. We'll do definitely more of it ourselves.
Thank you, Pieter. I think we've dealt more or less with all the questions. If there's, I see there's one or more detailed questions I will reply to, but I think that concludes the questions.
Thank you. Thank you, everybody, once again. We do appreciate your time and your interest in our company. Thank you very much. That little virtual tour is on the website if it was a bit quick. Thanks again. We appreciate it.