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A brief look at Shoprite’s interims to end December then, which we will unpack in greater detail next week after we’ve had a chance to slice and dice. Same old, same old really, and we mean that in the best kind of way – Group turnover +4.7%, Shoprite and Usave +5.6% and Checkers doing, well, “Better and Better” (No, just no. Ed) at +11.1%. But for more of the deets, take a look at our snappy summary here. In other news, Shoprite and Checkers will be supporting local wine farmers (while also, no doubt, making a buck) by buying up 1.5 million litres of the good stuff that those sons (and daughters) of the soil have failed to offload during our lockdowns. The wine is to be bottled under the same ‘lucky dip’ principle that governs its Oddbins selection and will be marketed under the new ‘Elephant’s Cousin’ brand, which makes affectionate reference to the common hyrax, or dassie, and will be available only as long as stocks last. Cultivars will include a sauvignon blanc, a merlot and shiraz, characterised by quaffability, and will be available in both supermarkets and LiquorShops. And (after this we’re done, promise) Checkers Sixty60 has launched a paper bag recycling initiative, in line with Shoprite’s zero waste-to-landfill goal, allowing punters to send their used bags back with the driver.

Comment: Some outstanding results and initiatives from the Big Red One, which seems to have viewed this last difficult year as an opportunity to innovate the heck out of every challenge it encounters. And that’s how it’s done.

Even as Massmart beats a strategic withdrawal from some of its retail assets, including Cambridge Food, it is staking out some other real estate critical to its growth (cue dystopian dubstep, dramatic pause) … Cyberspace. Massmart’s Makro and Builder’s brands will be ‘anchor tenants’, if you will, on Vodacom’s new “super app”, to be launched mid-year, on which punters will be able to shop online, stream music, pay bills, send cash to friends, buy insurance and even borrow money via their mobile phone. Game will be added later. This will give Massmart a captive market of 44 million Vodacom subscribers – a lot more punters than the business currently reaches. “We believe that we would get a lot more younger, tech-savvy customers to come to us,” avers Massmart COO Richard Inskip. Massmart recently launched products with OneCart and UberEats to expand its reach and plans to introduce its own shopping apps.

Comment: Promising stuff for a business which has endured some hard years.

Rivals Dis-Chem and Clicks have announced their plans for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations. Clicks has announced an exhaustive list of in-store pharmacies where the shots will be available, after registering them with the Department of Health, prioritising its own primary care workers for inoculation. It has once again offered its wholesale wing, UPD, for distribution of the vaccine – UPD, says Clicks, has experience getting vaccines to pharmacies, clinics and private hospitals in compliance with cold chain requirements. Dis-Chem, in the meantime, has said that it will be setting vaccine distribution sites in shopping malls, in addition to its own in-store clinics. Most landlords, says Dis-Chem, are coming to the party. Like Clicks, it will give shots to punters with the necessary e-vouchers from the Department of Health. Minister of Health Dr Zweli Mkhize has let it be known that the flow of vaccines is likely to speed up from April on in.

Comment: PPPs are the way to go. It should, in fact, be our national motto. And translated very broadly, it kind of is.

There was a time when the words ‘TikTok Shopping Event’ would have been essentially meaningless. Shopping, you see, was not an event but a process, and TikTok might have been something out of a nursery rhyme. Those days are no more, and thus it is that Walmart are soon to host its inaugural ‘Spring Shop-Along: Beauty Edition’ TikTok Shopping Event, in which creators will demo skincare, makeup and hair routines using their preferred items, and viewers will be able to shop from an assortment of beauty brands. Walmart’s first such event saw seven times more views than the retailer had anticipated, and a +25% uptick in followers. Rival Amazon, in the meantime, is going in the opposite direction, opening Amazon Fresh stores hand over fist in the US, with another 28 in the works, including one which will pioneer its ‘Just Walk Out’ cashier-less technology. Marks & Spencer now reaches over 100 markets with its online retail services having launched 46 websites in overseas markets, including Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, and Pakistan.

Comment: Whew. Truly we live in a brave new world. Local retailers might want to jump on that TikTok idea.

Turns out there is something new under the sun: hard seltzers, which, we confidently predict, will be consumed by the tank load at the Durban July Handicap this year, whether the revelries are virtual or in person. Seltzer is an American word for ‘soda water’ and what we’re talking about here are slightly flavoured sodas with a decent amount of booze in them, and they have been selling furiously over in the US these past couple years. And here goes: Distell have just launched the first such beverage on these shores, which rejoices in the name of Vawter, for reasons you’d have to get a branding guru to explain. Selzters like Vawter and the more popular Whiteclaw have, erm, clawed 7% of the market away from the beer boys (and indeed girls), appealing to both men and women, and, presumably, Crossfit enthusiasts who seek less calories with their buzz.

Comment: This one is going to fly, believe us.

There are shenanigans beyond the usual afoot in the South African tobacco industry, with British American Tobacco (BATSA) accusing industry bodies, the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association (FITA) and the South African Tobacco Organisation (SATO), of doing an about-face regarding their calls for an investigation into South Africa’s illicit cigarette trade. A study by independent market research company Ipsos found that 41% of retail outlets visited by the mystery shoppers sold a pack of 20 cigarettes below the minimum collectable tax (MCT) level of R20.01. And many of these, argue BATSA, were cigarettes produced by FITA and SATO members. According to FITA, BATSA is seeking merely to divert attention from its own troubles: the business was alleged in a recent Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) report as being a beneficiary of illicit tobacco commerce in Mali.

Comment: Ever since the first schoolboy took his first illicit puff behind the bicycle shed, tobacco has carried with it the delicious scent of banditry and lawlessness. And so it continues to go.

More research this week from Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity, a small but very influential NGO concerned with the high levels of economic inequality that persist here in the Beloved Country, and the attendant household affordability crisis, inter alia. Recently, you will recall, they found that the average cost of a household food basket remains high, at over R4,000 a month – although this is an improvement on January. Now, they warn, more pain is on the way: fuel levies are going up by 27 cents per litre, which will have knock-on effects across the basket – taxi fares, for example, are expected to increase between +7% and +25%. Electricity is soon to go up by +15.6%, with more to come. Food prices are likely to increase by as much as +10%. And while the government has recently announced a +4.5% increase on the national minimum wage (NMW) hourly rate, this minor increase will hardly touch sides in accounting for the increases.

Comment: Our industry has a role to play in keeping the poorest South Africans fed and otherwise cared for – and perhaps to do what we can towards greater economic parity.