If you happen to walk into the Woolworths head office on results day, you're likely to see staff filling the stairwells, peering over each other's shoulders, wanting a piece of the action. "You made it happen, give yourselves a round of applause," says Zyda Rylands, Woolworths South Africa CEO, as she delivers an address to the staff who look down on her from 12 flights of stairs.The retail group exceeded market expectations this week, reporting that group turnover was up 16.4% to R72.1-billion and operating profit had increased 24.7% to R6.97-billion.Woolworths has grown from a business that was trading at R16 a share six years ago to its current market value of about R84 a share, and it's no secret that the retailer is ready to expand further.Founded by Max Sonnenberg in 1931, Woolworths opened its first store in the former Royal Hotel in Cape Town, modelling itself on UK department store Marks & Spencer, which bought Woolworths' unissued capital in 1947.The retailer was still in its teething stages when it merged with Truworths in 1981 to list as Wooltru Group. After a 20-year relationship, Woolworths was unbundled in 1997 to became independent in 2001.story_article_left1"We've been on a good journey, the business is much bigger and it is trading much more profitably than it was. We are far more reflective of the demographics of this country than we ever were before," said group CEO Ian Moir, speaking from his office with skyline views of Table Mountain."We are a business now where 55% of our customers are black and that's a great thing. It's a very different business than it was."Moir joined the Woolworths board in 2010. Before that he was on the board of the group's Australian company, Country Road Group, in which Woolworths had bought a stake in 1998.In 2014 Woolworths acquired the full shareholding of Country Road and bought David Jones for A$2.15-billion (about R23.6-billion), believing that its growth lay with the Australian dollar."The Australian business has served us well," said Moir, who attributes the group's success to what he described as "strategic acquisitions".Moir, who divides his time between Melbourne and Cape Town, dismissed speculation about a possible secondary listing in Australia."I have no idea why we would want to ... we don't have any plans for it and we don't have a need to raise capital," he said.Recently, Woolworths announced that it would spend up to R2.1-billion for an integrated head office in Australia to house its David Jones and Country Road brands.In the group's 12 months ended June 2016, David Jones sales grew 8.4% with comparable sales up 7%, and profit of A$170-million. But Country Road was not so lucky - sales declined 3.9%, while the operating margin fell from 11.7% to 9.7%.block_quotes_start There is no doubt in my mind that we will have a very big and successful Australian business and we will be one of the [most admired] food retailers in the world block_quotes_end"We completely went off the boil ... We got design wrong and then we got the balance of the range wrong ... the two of those together are always going to result in a bad performance for a fashion business. But we also didn't focus on design enough, we were not fast enough to market," said Moir.As a result, Moir said, Country Road had appointed a new MD, head of design and head of merchandising.Woolworths Food has maintained its momentum, despite economic headwinds in South Africa. Woolworths Food's operating profit rose 15.6% to R1.82-billion.Alec Abraham, a senior retail analyst at Sasfin Securities, said Woolworths's position as both a food and clothing retailer had buffered it from slow consumer spend.story_article_right2"The fact that their core target market is the upper-income groups also acts as a buffer, as wealthier people's spending patterns are more resilient during periods of economic slowdowns than lower-income people," he said.But with expected internal food inflation of as much as 11% in the first half of the current financial year, it's no wonder Moir wants to lower prices to maintain and expand market share in the heavily contested area of grocery retailing.The group also hopes to replicate the South African success of Woolworths Food by setting up David Jones Food in Australia. "Food has become the new fashion in Australia, and a Woolies-type offering will do incredibly well," said Moir.Woolworths plans to spend between A$75-million and A$100-million over the next three years to expand the food offering. It anticipates deficits of between A$5-million and A$10-million before achieving profitability in 2019.Turning to the Woolworths of the future, Moir said: "Africa will be bigger for us as a percentage of our business. Our food business will be the same. The last thing I'd want to do is change the essence of what we stand for."At the end of the day, however long I stay at Woolworths I will only be there for a short part of its history."But there is no doubt in my mind that we will have a very big and successful Australian business and we will be one of the [most admired] food retailers in the world."tshandup@sundaytimes.co.za..