A quick look at those Boxer results released earlier this week. In the half year to end August, turnover growth of +13.9% was supported by a combination of comparable store growth (+5.3%) and sales from new stores (+8.6%), a particularly impressive performance, as it was delivered amid 0.7% product deflation, indicating strong volume growth and market share gains for the newly JSE-listed business. Trading profit margin held steady at 4.1% despite absorbing the additional costs associated with listing, with stability achieved through greater operational efficiencies. In a key milestone, Boxer also declared its very first dividend of 45.3 cents per share, which will no doubt make the shareholders smile. Boxer is focused on maintaining sales momentum for the remainder of FY2026, with success dependent on strong Black Friday and festive season trading.

Comment: Solid numbers from a very solid business. For more on those, refer to our excellent summary here produced by our analyst team.

TBH, we don’t often scrutinise our till slips, but over the past couple of weeks, we couldn’t help but notice a change to our slip when walking out of Dis-Chem, where in big, bold lettering at the top it claimed “Your till slip is about to look even better”, while at the bottom it said “Dis-Chem Better Rewards coming soon”. Turns out that “Better Rewards” is the actual name of Dis-Chem’s new and improved rewards programme, which will be launched next week Tuesday, 21 October. Along with the instant savings that have come to be expected (and are preferred) by South African shoppers, Dis-Chem says that the key difference in ‘Better Rewards’ is that it will be a “collaborative brand-powered” system, where partnering brands will remain constant. This means ongoing 10% savings on more than 140 brands covering 10,000 products. And if a particular product is on promotion, rewards members will get that extra percentage off on top of their 10% discount. Another feature is what they are calling ‘Pharmacy Boost’, where members get a further 5% off the participating brands just for making use of the Dis-Chem dispensary for their prescriptions or OTC meds. And rewards members banking with Capitec will receive an extra 5% off (bringing their instant discount to 15% on the partnering brands) and health benefits relating to clinic consults or chronic medication refills through the bank’s ‘Live Better’ platform.

Comment: This has the potential to be huge. Capitec has 25 million customers, more than half of the adult population in South Africa. Offering them a flat 15% discount on 10,000 products not only means democratising quality healthcare, but could (and should) significantly build Dis-Chem’s shopper base.

Social media… so many of us resent it (ok, maybe only those born last century), but we have to admit that more and more these days, it is how we stay on top of what’s going on. Like the fact that SA’s first Walmart storefront is lit (as in, has literally been lit up). Comments are varied, ranging from typical keyboard warriors taking out their daily frustrations from behind the safety of their devices, to more genuine, heartfelt messages of congrats to the Massmart team. For now, that’s as much as we know. But we’ll update you as details surface. Next, in Kenya Woolworths is focusing on building its beauty offering in the hope that it can double its category sales there just like it has here over the last two years. “A few years ago, we strategically made a call to really go after beauty in all of our markets, starting with South Africa,” CEO Roy Bagattini said in Nairobi. Following an expansion of the category in Namibia and Botswana, Kenyan stores will now also stock a range of global brands, including Fenty Beauty, Chanel fragrances, Estée Lauder creams and its own WBeauty line. Next up, ,strong>Pick n Pay has announced that since the beginning of 2025, it has collected 124 tonnes of e-waste through its e-waste collection containers. Since July 2024, Pick n Pay has been placing e-waste collection containers in stores, with 120 expected to be available by the end of 2025 across multiple provinces. And we close off by sharing some of the numbers from Shoprite’s integrated annual and sustainability reports for the last financial year – 8,723 new jobs created by the Big Red One, R469.7m invested in communities, 222,349 meals served every day in hunger relief and over R1bn in payouts to Shoprite Employee Trust beneficiaries.

Comment: Big numbers from a big business.

We start off our international news with Walmart, which will soon be partnering with OpenAI to allow shoppers to browse and buy products directly through ChatGPT. Who better to get the details from than the man/woman/thing/horse’s mouth itself? So we did. Open quote: “You’ll likely be able to buy Walmart products through ChatGPT soon, but there’s no public release date yet. Here’s what we know so far: OpenAI and Walmart have just announced a partnership that will allow customers to purchase Walmart products directly within ChatGPT using an “Instant Checkout” system. The announcement says the feature will be available “soon,” but doesn’t specify exactly when. ChatGPT already supports showing product recommendations, images, and links to purchase pages (redirecting you to the merchant’s site). The new Walmart-ChatGPT feature adds native checkout, meaning you won’t have to leave ChatGPT to complete the purchase.” End quote. Moving right along, punters in Blighty are feeling the pinch in the lead-up to the festive season, with UK inflation numbers matching, if not pipping, our own here in the Beloved Country. According to Worldpanel by Numerator, the UK’s grocery inflation rose to 5.2% in the four weeks to 5 Oct, up from 4.9% in September, and is forecast to climb to 5.5% or 6% before Christmas, according to other research outfits. Chocolate, meat and coffee prices are rising the fastest, just in time for this well-known period of indulgence. Next, Lidl in Spain is transforming its in-house plastic waste (such as pallet shrink wrap) into a new line of private label garbage bags, containing 20% to 50% recycled plastic. Over 1,500 tonnes of plastic have been recycled so far, and the aim is to sell more than 16 million recycled bags by the end of 2026.

A little more than a month after reporting that Adcock Ingram may move into the obesity drug market, Aspen has let it be known that it has received regulatory approval to market Mounjaro in the country. Mounjaro is another GLP-1 drug, i.e. a diabetes drug which is also used for weight management to great success. The weight-loss drug market has been estimated to reach $100bn by the end of this decade, so it’s no wonder the pharma companies are scrambling to cash in. Aspen also plans to produce a generic semaglutide GLP-1 drug by mid-2026, pitting it directly against Adcock, whose minority shareholder, Natco Pharma, plans to do the same. This development comes at the right time, too, after Aspen suffered a major blow in FY2025 due to a contractual dispute and new minimum tax rules, leading to a loss of R1.08bn for the period. And it won’t stop there. These obesity drugs come with their own series of side effects, creating secondary demand for drugs to ease the user’s symptoms.
Speaking of Adcock, as we did just a few lines up, shareholders in the company have voted overwhelmingly in support of Natco Pharma’s offer to buy out Adcock’s minority shares. This means that Adcock will delist from the JSE and become a privately owned company, with a 36% stake to be held by Natco Pharma and the remaining 64% in the hands of Bidvest. Some conditions still need to be met, after which the Takeover Regulation Panel will issue its certificate of compliance to seal the deal.

Yesterday StatsSA published the retail trade sales results for Aug 2025, showing real growth of +2.3% year-on-year (i.e. adjusted to exclude inflation, also known as ‘constant prices’). Growth came from six of the seven measured retailer types: Food specialists were in the red at -3.4% (smaller specialist stores, e.g. bakeries, butcheries, fruit & veg that sell a specific type of food rather than a general assortment) General dealers (predominantly selling food) grew +0.8% (as with food specialists, volumes likely impacted by the uptick in food inflation to +5.2% for Aug 2025) Retailers in pharma, cosmetics and toiletries: +4.1%, up against low growth in Aug 2024 (+1.2%) Retailers in textiles and clothing: +1.6% YoY, lowest growth in 11 months Retailers in household goods: +6.2%; retailers in hardware: +8.1% and ‘other’ retailers (includes some ‘luxury’ specialist retailers): +7.9%, supported by the interest rate cuts

Comment: August’s retail data show a split – interest rate cuts are boosting retailers in durable goods, while food growth lagged. This is an interesting divide as the Q4 promotional cycle looms with Black Friday and the festive season around the corner. Competition will be fierce as retailers fight for share of wallet, and shoppers won’t have a two-pot retirement fund to tap into like they did last year.