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Boxer Superstores is a national retailer and one of the bright stars in the Pick n Pay firmament. But they are firmly rooted in the communities they serve. One such community is Stockville, set into the vertiginous slopes of Durban’s Upper Highway area. Last week Boxer, through its Hunger Relief Programme, dispatched 250 food hampers with the assistance of the Gillitt Foundation to households in that area. Dis-Chem, in the meantime, report that their customers are shopping differently for medication during these days of the pandemic, with a 25% improvement in adherence rates among its customers on chronic medication. These shoppers have been using delivery services to obtain their meds, or clicking and collecting. And there seems to be an increased awareness of prevention, with greater demand for immune boosters, nutrition products, and vitamins – notably vitamin C. SPAR have noted that there has been a +20% increase in the sale of personal care items since the beginning of the current crisis, as well as +25% on dry groceries.

Comment: It will be interesting to see what sort of longevity some of these trends have when the worst days of COVID-19 are behind us.

Those SPAR interims to which we alluded last week: as we reported, the acquisition of the loss-making Polish enterprise Piotr i Paweł, which requires still to be restructured and reorganised, saw the Jolly Green One post a decline in normalised diluted HEPS to the tune of -13.4%. Sans Piotr, say SPAR, they would have been +8.5% to the good. And Piotr i Paweł has performed well in the last six months, with the acquisition enabling 157 existing SPAR retailers to join the group, the conversion of nine Piotr stores to SPARs and the rest remaining as they are for a tidy haul of 219. Overall, SPAR saw an increase in turnover of +10.1% to R59.75bn, with operating profit down -3.4% to R1.33bn. SPAR SA grew turnover ex-DC +7.8%, with Tops considerably weaker than it’s been (for obvious reasons) at +3.9% up. Across Southern Africa, 53 net new stores were added; the total now stands at 2,402.

Comment: All of this info and more can be yours if you simply click here for a look at our more detailed result summary.

In the UK, Aldi and Tesco are fighting a war on several fronts, notably price and delivery, and Tesco may be winning. A while back, Aldi was rapped on the knuckles for its ‘swap and save’ campaign which compared the price of a basket of goods to equivalent branded lines at Tesco. Tesco in turn vowed to match Aldi on private label brands, and this has resulted in a disclaimer on Tesco’s latest campaign that in fact, some Tesco own brand products may be cheaper. Tesco’s advances in online have also, in part, prompted Aldi’s partnership with Deliveroo, offering a range of 150 essential items for 30-minute delivery, having apparently decided that their previous standard delivery box service wasn’t going to cut it. In the US, in the meanwhile, Walmart and smaller, classier competitor Target have both enjoyed success in upping their sales during the pandemic, with the former seeing online sales increase +74% in the first quarter, and the latter +141%. However, Walmart’s earnings per share increased for the period, while Target’s declined. One of the reasons might be that Walmart sold consistently over the period, while Target enjoyed a spike when the US government’s stimulus checks hit the wallet in April.

Comment: The lessons of COVID-19 will set some retailers up for ongoing success when happier times return.

Manufacturing businesses in this great industry we call home are facing similar challenges as retailers, but have perhaps less room to tweak the business model. This has caused a flurry of profit warnings and cancelled dividends. First up, Astral Foods, now SA’s leading producer of SA’s leading protein, which has, indeed, decided to hold onto the dividend in the face of rising uncertainty and increased costs due to the disruption of global supply chains, as well as historical factors like load shedding. Profit in the six months through March was relatively flat, they say with headline earnings up only slightly to R369m. Tiger Brands, in the meantime, have let it be known that pretax profit fell -65% to R673m for the six months through March, and that they would be looking at significant cost cutting measures, including significant job losses as a result. In the meantime, a gentleman’s agreement between Tongaat Hulett and Barloworld for the latter’s acquisition of the former’s starch business appears to have fallen through in the face of economic uncertainty.

Comment: Tough times, and no mistake.

Uncertain times in the teeming fishing grounds off our coast, and in boardrooms with presumably expansive sea views. John Paul de Freitas has recently and unexpectedly stepped down as CFO of Sea Harvest; Samir Saban resigned as CEO of Premfish in December, and Elton Bosch as CFO of Oceana in March, all for personal reasons or to pursue dreams of success or fulfilment in other areas. Why now? you ask. Fact is, fishing is not much fun anymore. Major recent quota cuts for species like hake have forced fish canners to resort to imports for most of their requirements. COVID-19 has disrupted demand for South African fish in overseas markets, particularly in Asia. And with the recent appointment of Barbara Creecy as environment, forestry and fisheries minister, there have been rumblings that the bigger fishing groups might be on the verge of losing a big chunk of their quota to smaller, community-based outlets, leading the leaders identified above to dust off their resumes and head back to the safety of the shore.

Comment: Always a fraught industry, fishing seems like a particularly tricky space in which to operate right now.

Your retail trade sales for the unsettled month of February 2020, courtesy of the hoary sages over at StatsSA, with their abacuses and their slate pencils. Surprisingly, overall sales were up +2% YoY, with the main contributions coming from “all other” retailers at +8.9%, retailers in household furniture, appliances and equipment at +4.7%, and retailers in textiles, clothing, footwear and leather goods at 1.5%. Pharmaceuticals were down -2%, while sales in our own great sector grew by one slim percent. Seasonally-adjusted sales declined month-on-month from January to the tune of -0.4%, and -1.1% QoQ. Sales in the amorphous “other” category were driven in part by the rise in online retail.

Comment: It should be remembered that February predated the lockdown – retail trade sales for March are likely to be an altogether more telling affair.