Africa’s biggest food retailer, Shoprite, has revealed plans to open 13 new outlets in Sub-Saharan Africa – outside South Africa – by the end of the current financial year.

This will increase the number of African stores operating outside South Africa to 163 shops, it said.

In the past financial year Shoprite opened 10 new supermarkets outside South Africa. It continued a robust growth in the six months to December through the 15 countries where it has operations, according to Shoprite.

In the six months ended December 2013, the retail gaint said African sales outside of South Africa surged 28.1 percent in rand terms and “14.9% in constant currencies.”

Whitey Basson, the CEO of Shoprite, said this growth was boosted by the weak rand against the US dollar than did paper money of some African states in which Shoprite has operations.

The retailer however posted an overall 8 percent surge in headline earnings per share in the period under review, described as the lowest interim profit increase in eight years.

The blame for this poor performance during the period has been laid squarely on the door of major job losses, high consumers’ indebtedness and high petrol prices in South Africa.

Basson admitted in Johannesburg that this particular interim period had been a very tough one.

“What these numbers are telling you is: the consumer environment is incredibly tough in South Africa,” Reuben Bleeders, an analyst at Gryphon Asset Management, told Reuters.