With a muted fanfare played on a solo oboe, the Woolworths results are in, and they are, let’s face it, not all that: turnover was +3% to R74.3bn, while adjusted pre-tax profit (which we’ll have to quote in the absence of any info on trading profit) was down -8.3% to R5.5bn. Woolworths Food was quite naturally the top performer, growing sales +8.6% over a hellishly difficult period. David Jones, equally naturally, was not, with sales up only +1% and comparable sales down -0.7% in a business into whose turnaround Woolies has already sunk R2.9bn. A new and promising aspect of the strategy Down Under is to bring the South African food model to hungry Australians. Back home, retail space grew +4.6%, +7.6% taking only food into account. Mr Moir seems as sanguine as ever, though, despite the challenges abroad and the competition back home, with Checkers making a strong play in Woolies territory. “We just do premium really well,” he says. “It’s a difficult business to be in and we are far from being complacent.” This in a nutshell. But if it’s more info that you want, click here.

Comment: It’s our considered belief that the Dapper One will emerge from this difficult period both stronger and wiser.

Massmart interims up next, with sales up +0.5% to R42.5bn for the six months through June, and operating profit down -6.6% in what CEO Guy Hayward describes as “the most difficult trading period we have experienced.” It’s a mark of just how tough things are that analysts are calling this a tidy set of numbers. Hope was generated by food and liquor, where some growth was achieved, and extreme cost control. Also stiffening the resolve of shareholders was the supply chain, where new guy Richard Inskip has been working some magic, slashing inventory and generally tightening things up; and the fact that parent company, Walmart, have repeated the assertion that they’re in it for the long haul. For a more detailed view of it all, click here.

Comment: Tough times, and there’s not much to be said beyond that, other than the investment the Men in Black are making in efficiencies now will position it for good growth when the turnaround comes.

Off to the overseas we go, then, with our neck pillows and our suitcases wrapped in stout South African cling film. First stop, the United Kingdom, where we intend shacking up with our brother’s friend in Earl’s Court until we figure something out, and taking a gander at Tesco, which appears to be seeing off the competition tidily, beating all comers in the past month and growing sales +3% in the quarter. Tesco has been leveraging its considerable buying power to keep its price increases lower than the competition and pick up value-conscious punters. Then Waitrose, which has beaten German discounter Lidl to become the UK’s seventh-largest retailer. Lidl and its rival Aldi have both contributed substantially to the overall sales growth of 4% in the supermarket sector, though. Then over the pond to the US of A, where Walmart is doubling down on its advance into the ether with the launch of voice shopping on the Google Assistant platform. And, what’s more, it will offer a wider range of merchandise than anyone else on the platform. Still, a tough nut to crack, with Amazon’s Echo devices currently at 72% penetration in the market.

Comment: So that’s a wrap then. Off to our tartan sleeping bag on the laundry room floor.

Two pharmacy outfits, alike in dignity, and two sets of indicators which would have startled us just a couple of years ago: first up, Adcock Ingram, which is looking to grow its footprint after a bullish year: turnover up +7% to R5.94bn, with trading profit up +20% to R724m after their recent restructuring. Particularly pleasing was OTC, the second-biggest seller in the group, but the biggest contributor to profit, and which grew revenue by +11% to R1.8bn. On the other hand, Aspen, once the darling of the local pharmaceutical industry, saw its share price decline 3.3% in the last 90 days of trading as investors nervously eye the regulatory bodies circling the business after it lost its appeal against the Italian Competition Authority over the price of some of its cancer drugs. 

Comment: The worm turns, as the expression goes. Or goeth, if you prefer.

Bowing to the inevitable, doing the right thing and positioning itself for success all at once are Pioneer Foods, which has signed on to the voluntary healthy food options industry initiative, being coordinated by the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa (CGCSA). They’ve already introduced four new variants to their Lipton range with a 30% reduction in sugar content, and their Ceres Nectar and Ceres Squash ranges now have options with reductions of between 40 and 60% in sugar. And it’s not just sugar – salt too, which in their bread they’ve cut by 15% already. All of this in keeping with legislation aimed at reducing diseases such as hypertension and strokes caused by excessive salt consumption; as well as diabetes, obesity, and poor nutrition as a result of too much sugar in the diet. 

Comment: Excellent work, by both Pioneer and our good friends at the CGCSA.

The resilience of the South African consumer is a quality which businesses have taken for granted, if they are honest with themselves. But the numbers, as dispensed by StatsSA, are getting harder to ignore, as are their effects. 55.5% of South Africans – 30 million people – live below the "upper-bound poverty line" (UBPL) of R992/person per month. Worse, 21.9 million of them live in the "lower-bound poverty line" (LBPL) where they survive on R647/person a month or less. And it’s getting worse – in 2013, the number for the UBPL was 53.2%. This forces people making hard choices at the cash register, where the poignant sight of abandoned trolleys is becoming all too common, and where a difference of mere cents will see a staple item being left behind. The only good news dispensed by StatsSA’s Pali Lehohla, it seems, is that the number of people living in abject poverty declined from its peak of 16.7 million in 2009 to 13.8 million in 2015.

Comment: The starting point for a solution to this increasingly desperate state, as everyone knows, is leadership: in government, civil society and business.

With laudable inevitability, Clicks have launched their ClubCard App, because if a tree falls in a forest these days without an app to add seven different new angles to the falling experience, share it with the other guys in the grove, then send its data back to Trees Inc. to be sliced and diced and sold off to the folk at Roots Global, does it make a sound? Anyway, the ClubCard App is essentially your ClubCard on our phone, but here’s the genius part: you can also submit your prescriptions on the go and manage repeat medications from your phone – one more reason punters might consider making Clicks their pharmacy of choice.

You will recall that Shoprite are reputed to have designs on the market in Eastern Europe – specifically, Poland, where word in the street is that the Big Red One is eyeing the acquisition of a smaller chain. And Steinhoff, you will recall, owns the Abra chain of 100 furniture retailers in the country. Just saying.

“Who?” you ask, in tones which are frankly a little dismissive, and as usual you’re way off. Inhle Beverages are a contract packaging outfit from Gauteng, specialising in the canning and bottling of carbonated soft drinks, energy drinks and natural mineral water, and they’ve just been bought for R360 large by Long4Life, an investment holding company run by a Mr Brian Joffe, who has a certain interest in the food services industry, from which Inhle will no doubt shortly be making a tidy penny.