Botswana based multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer Choppies, which has stores in three Southern Africa countries,  is looking to expand into Zambia and Tanzania in 2015, its Chief Executive told HowWeMadeItInAfrica in an interview.

“If you take the formal retail penetration in Zambia, it’s still under 20 percent. Over 80 percent is still informal market. So that leaves a lot of opportunity for us to expand,” said Ramchandran Ottapathu, CEO of Choppies, adding that there was also huge demand for formal retail in Tanzania and their proximity to Botswana was a plus.

The 15 years old company has grown from just two stores to over 120 outlets in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The retailer, which has a network of 67 stores and, according to its annual report, a 32 percent share of Botswana’s retail market, expanded into South Africa towards the end of 2008, and most recently into Zimbabwe in 2013.

Choppies has already expanded its stores in Zimbabwe to 18 in just 18 months of entering the market that many investors see as politically and economically unstable has lowered investor confidence and with many multinationals being extra cautious about venturing into the Robert Mugabe led country.

Ottapathu however told HowWeMadeItInAfrica that the opportunities offered by the Zimbabwean market far outweighs the political and economic risk. addition to a growing consumer demand for formalized retail, he believes the country has the best pool of talent in Africa.

“If you take the talent pool available there, it’s the best you can get on the continent. So it’s much easier doing business, especially if you are a retailer employing a lot of people, and your manpower quality therefore counts a lot,” he said.

“[Choppies] have proven themselves to be good at expanding into African countries. They successfully expanded into Zimbabwe recently, so we think there’s a tremendous opportunity to expand into other markets in the region: Namibia, Zambia, and Tanzania,” Brett Stewart, director of Standard Chartered Private Equity, told CNBC Africa in March last year.

“The opportunity is huge, and certainly Ramchandran and the management team have done very well at expanding so far.”