On Monday, Pick n Pay released its full-year results (including Boxer), and while overall performance was muted, a stronger second half of the 2025 financial year may indicate that things are looking rosier. Group turnover grew +5.6% to R118.6bn in the 53 weeks to 2 March (or +3.2% when adjusting for a 52-week year), with Group gross profit +7.3% thanks to reduced waste and improved category mix. CEO Sean Summers did not skirt important issues, addressing the “tough but necessary decisions made” during the year, which included the closing of non-profitable stores to focus on the right ones. Boxer, Clothing and Online held up the fort, with Clothing +9.9% and Online +44.6% (both over 52:52 weeks). The Group also announced the release of its new integrated app coming in Sep 2025, which will combine asap!, Smart Shopper and value-added services into a single platform. And it was announced that Sean Summers’ contract has been extended to May 2028. For more on the results, have a look at our summary here.

Comment: Pick n Pay’s road to recovery seems to include targeting high-demand areas like Clothing, Online and digital integration. Summer’s contract extension also suggests confidence in his leadership to drive the Group’s turnaround.

Shoprite’s no-frills discount format, Usave, has recently introduced a system designed to reduce costs and boost operational efficiency in its supermarkets. Implemented in partnership with SA tech company, Azoteq, the system employs SmartSense™ technology to track power consumption and facilitate rotational switching of store equipment during power outages, utilising inverters and battery banks. This is especially useful for Usave’s rural and peri-urban stores, where electricity supply is often erratic, with extended outages. The system monitors temperatures in areas like cold storage, freezer rooms and the shop floor, and issues alerts when preset thresholds are exceeded, preventing spoilage and optimising energy consumption of equipment. To generate additional savings, the supers also regularly simulate power outages on time-of-use (ToU) tariff structures, switching over to battery during peak times when electricity is more costly, and charging the batteries during off-peak times. Already running at 202 locations, Usave plans to equip all 520+ of its stores, while also installing solar at compatible locations.

Comment: Challenges so very often drive ingenuity. This is exactly the kind of thing we need to see more of in our country’s underserved areas.

A changing of the guard on the Pick n Pay board, where James Formby, former CEO of Rand Merchant Bank, and currently serving as lead independent director, will succeed Gareth Ackerman as chair of the board, effective Aug 2025. Formby is also the non-independent chair of Boxer, however he will step down from that role at the end of the 2026 FY. Next, while we will coverDis-Chem’s full year results in next week’s Trade Tatler (the results are out tomorrow), indications from the retailer are that headline earnings per share may rise by as much as +21%. We’ll wait and see. Moving on, spaza shops across the Beloved Country are under scrutiny following reports from Soweto residents claiming that they are being charged extra fees at local shops when paying by card. The Consumer Goods and Services Ombudsman (CGSO) is on the case, confirming that such a practice contravenes Section 23 of the Consumer Protection Act, which governs fair pricing. And finally, according to Amazon and Takelot, South Africans are turning more and more to the online retailers to buy everyday essentials. In its first year of operation here, Amazon reported that its biggest sellers were toilet paper, dishwasher tablets, dishwashing liquid, hand wash, bleach, nappies, shampoo, body wash, multipurpose cleaner and sunscreen. And over Black Friday 2024, Takealot’s top three selling products were Red Bull, BabySoft TP and cases of Coca-Cola 300ml.

According to Warc (World Advertising Research Center), advertising revenue at Amazon is on the up, and while it accounts for just 9.2% of its total income, it has been showing double-digit, year-on-year growth, outpacing overall growth at the company. At an estimated $60bn for 2025, this doesn’t come close to the other Big Techs like Alphabet (Google at $272.5bn in FY2024) and Meta (Facebook at $162.4bn in FY2024), but then Amazon plays a rather different game. Why the shift? Same reason we’re seeing the likes of Shoprite doing it here – revenue diversification, especially at a time of increasing trade uncertainty. Next, first-world problems abound at Tesco, where some shoppers are calling its new camera system at self-checkout “invasive”, while others joke that it is like Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology used in football. The system shows the shopper a video if they fail to scan an item properly at self-checkout with a message saying, “The last item wasn't scanned properly. Remove from the bagging area and try again”. According to the British Retail Consortium, 20.4 million thefts took place in the year to Sep 2024, which has prompted retailers like Tesco and Sainsbury’s to up the ante in shoplifting protection using systems like the aforementioned.

Comment: If you don’t like the cameras, stop stealing, we say.

Correct us if we’re wrong, but providing affordable and safe poultry to consumers has got to be one of the trickiest FMCG sectors to navigate as a supplier. Just ask Daybreak Foods, which went into business rescue last week. Based in Delmas, Mpumalanga, the business was founded in 2001 as a small-scale operation, but grew rapidly to become a major player on the SA poultry scene. It was acquired by the PIC in 2015, and just two years later, started feeling the headwinds caused by the increase in international imports and other market pressures. This all came to a head at the end of last year, when the company faced severe financial strain, failing to pay suppliers and staff. The PIC believes that business rescue is the best way to save Daybreak and the approximately 3,000 jobs it provides. We hope so too. Then, on the other end of the scale, is Quantum Foods, which has reported a jump in H1 profit (+234%!) thanks to greater demand and volume recovery, as well as the absence of bird flu (HPAI) and load shedding which plagued the previous reporting period. Quantum warns that the risk of a bird flu outbreak is regarded as high for the rest of the 2025 FY, however, and that “the stringent protocols for voluntary vaccination against HPAI published by the SA government remain prohibitive”. In fact, according to the company, no producers have been successful in their applications to vaccinate poultry, which means that the likes of Quantum (and, we assume, its counterparts) have to resort to reducing the numbers of layer hens in high-risk areas and sourcing layer-hatching eggs from diverse breeders.

Interims time at Rhodes Food Group, which saw regional (SA) revenue increase by +7.6% thanks to strong recovery in volumes despite consumer spending remaining under pressure. Its international segment was another story, dropping -17.2% due to softer global demand, fruit contracts not honoured and drought conditions in eSwatini causing a shortage of canned pineapple stock. Next, Nestlé (international) will be investing an extra $88.7m in a Brazilian Nescafé factory, this after a $196.5m investment made a year ago to scale instant coffee production and B2B coffee machine sales there. Brazil is the largest coffee-growing and second-largest coffee-consuming country in the world (after the US), and Nestlé has been operating in the country for over a century. From one luxury necessity to another, Cadbury has launched its ‘Generous First’ campaign in South Africa, calling on chocolate lovers to nominate someone they believe deserves an unforgettable first-time experience. “Cadbury has always believed in the power of generosity to bring people closer. The ‘Generous First’ campaign is our commitment to embodying the spirit of Ubuntu (‘I am because we are’), facilitating moments of connection. Through this, we want South Africans to create ‘ripples of happiness’ by sharing novel experiences that many might not otherwise have access to,” explained Nomawethu Ngadlela, Chocolate Category Lead at Mondelez SA.

A slow news week for our local economic indicators so let’s have a look at the latest news regarding Trump’s tariffs… and it’s quite something. Late yesterday the US Court of International Trade declared Trump’s tariffs to be illegal, blocking their implementation. The court has given the administration 10 days to do whatever it must to remove the tariffs, although it was immediately announced that the government would appeal. But according to Moneyweb and Bloomberg, “if the decision holds, it would in a matter of days eliminate new 30% US tariffs on imports from China, 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico and 10% duties on most other goods entering the US.” Imagine that. Of course, everything could change in the blink of an eye. We just don’t know. Read this excellent white paper on how tariff shocks and trade volatility are impacting the global FMCG landscape – impacting sourcing, pricing, supply chains and shopper behaviour – and what businesses can do to build resilience.

Back to more familiar territory, next week will be a humdinger for our economic indicators – the SARB Monetary Policy Committee is due to vote on the interest rate, forecasts post-Budget 3.0 will be updated, the fuel price will see some form of adjustment with the higher general fuel tax and we’re also expecting the GDP numbers for the first quarter of 2025. We look forward to updating you then.