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The Big Red One, having beat a strategic withdrawal from Nigeria, has shown this week that its ambitions for this great continent are by no means exhausted, with the opening of its 40th store in Zambia at the Jacaranda Mall in Ndola. It’s interesting to note that Pick n Pay, which once claimed Zambia as its African bridgehead, has 24 stores in the country. One of the reasons for Shoprite’s success in Zambia has been its ‘buy local’ policy, with 90% of goods and services purchased in-country. Another is employment: the business has hired 7,800 people directly and another 1,550 indirectly, 80% of these between the ages of 25 and 35. In other Shoprite news, not unrelated, the retailer has spent R700m over the past five years on retail skills and training programmes, training over 24,000 people in its retail readiness programme, providing 1,027 bursaries, and training 5,765 young people in the past three years in the Youth Employment Service (YES) programme.

Comment: Commendable stuff from Shoprite, creating jobs for the generation that most needs them.

Bit of a first for us here, Takealot’s annual results. Hear us out: it’s not yet an online grocer, and is small potatoes compared with our Big 6 retailers, but Amazon was once an online bookstore remember? And not so very long ago. So here goes: revenue up +65% to R8.7bn for the year through March, with the trading loss declining from R618m to R101m. A star performer in the Group, which is owned by Naspers, and also includes stylish online retailer Superbalist, was Mr D Food, for whose service there has been an understandably increased demand, and which grew revenue +103% for the period. In other Takealot news, the business has opened a 6,700m² pickup point in Richmond Park, Milnerton, with the potential to expand its footprint to 17,000m². Meanwhile the Richmond Corner convenience centre just across the way is co-anchored by Pick n Pay, Woolworths Food, and Clicks.

Comment: Who, no doubt, are checking their new neighbour skeef.

Dinner party conversation this week (if we still had dinner parties, and anyone could remember how to talk to other people) was all about the unexpected value discovered by FirstRand in South Africa’s informal sector, a big chunk of which is made up of retailers. First Rand has been outfitting township wholesalers with Selpal devices and software, which allow customers to pay via card and enable these businesses to buy from suppliers, with a view to mining the resulting data and selling them financial services down the line. It found that some of the larger cash-only wholesalers were hitting sales of up to R40m a month, and that even the smallest of their retail customers were turning over R2m a year, albeit at very thin margins. It also found that many of these businesses were credit-averse, turning tail at the first sight of a negative balance.

Comment: Which is not what you want to discover, presumably, when you’re selling credit. But well done FirstRand, for finally recognising the scale of the opportunity represented by this sector, something we’ve been on about for absolute yonks.

In the US, Amazon is on track to overtake Walmart as the biggest retailer in that troubled geography, boosted to the tune of three years of e-commerce growth by one terrible year of pandemic-induced lockdown, as punters relied on the smiling behemoth for their cleaning supplies and groceries as well as their gewgaws. Nice for some. In the UK, private equity outfit Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R), and advised by ex-Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy, has put in a somewhat insulting £5.5bn offer for the purchase of Morrison’s, whose upper management is itself peopled by ex-Tesco execs. Sounds like there’s some history there. And speaking of Tesco, the retail giant has reported a sharp decline in sales since the easing of the lockdown and the return of the British people to the pubs and their staple diet of bangers, mash, and lukewarm beer. On the upside (unless you’re a cashier), Tesco are set to open their first app-driven store, using a network of cameras and sensors that will allow shoppers to breeze out scot-free, experiencing no doubt an illusory frisson of criminal excitement.

Comment: One day they’ll figure out how to make a buck without any people whatsoever.

Coca-Cola has sustained dual attacks this week from two monstrous egos. Cristiano Ronaldo’s rejection at a press conference of the fizzy thirst quencher – which he is on record of having previously consumed and endorsed – saw the company’s value take a $4bn hit. While the business – which has moved increasingly into healthier drinks, including water – will no doubt recover this value in short order, this is a cautionary tale about the outsize influence that capricious celebrities now wield. Closer to home, Steve Hofmeyr has been one of the first to taste Boer Cola burbling that, “This is the future if you don’t like the taste of politics anymore”, and also commenting on how he’s looking forward to mixing it with some good old brandewyn. Launched on Youth Day, Boer Cola is brought to you by the makers of Boer Bier, whose home brewing kits took advantage of the COVID lockdown. We have the suspicion that the likes of Coca-Cola and Pepsi won’t give this newcomer a second glance, however.

Comment: As large multinationals increasingly weave their power and influence into the fabric of society, it’s inevitable that they will become targets, globally, and as with Boer Cola, locally too.

In Standerton, the travails of Astral Foods provide a stark illustration of the effects of poor service delivery and crumbling infrastructure on our economy. The Lekwa municipality owes Eskom R1.3bn, the water department R1.4bn, and SARS a few hundred million. The latest disruption to water supply – caused by load shedding, a leaky reservoir, and holey pipes – is now running into months. Astral Foods, the town’s largest business and provider of over 3,600 jobs, has forked out R50m on a reverse osmosis water treatment facility which still only provides for half of its needs, and is down R39m in lost production over the last five years. A couple of weeks ago, it had to fork over R3m for overtime to make up for the loss in production over a single week. Astral’s facility slaughtered only 950,000 birds in that week, instead of the targeted 3.2 million. The Government has at last placed the town under administration, but repairing the damage, to the extent possible, will take years.

Comment: The Standertons across our country add up to a national economic crisis and should be treated as such by Government and business alike.

Economists have revised their predictions for the growth of our GDP, upping it to +4.1% for the year, assuming a lighter touch on lockdowns and despite the slow pace of vaccinations in the Beloved Country. This rosier picture does not obscure the dark stain of our COVID-related losses in 2020, but it’s an improvement. Growth for Sub-Sharan Africa is expected to come in at +3.3% for the year, but off a higher base – the subcontinent lost only -2% of growth in the pandemic’s first year. And adding a bit of shine to our silver lining is Optimum Investment Group’s Roelof Botha, who believes we’re good for as much as +5%, and that contrary to received wisdom, we’re actually adding jobs – to the tune of 510,000 since the second quarter of 2020, and 152,000 for highly skilled people in March 2021. The great Azar Jammine of Econometrix also believes we’re pulling ourselves out of it at a quicker rate than anticipated, and points to the strength of our middle class and our tax base as positive indicators for recovery.

Comment: We’ve got this people. Let’s make sure that our recovery is more evenly distributed though.