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Bertina Engelbrecht is that most rare find, a woman who sits in the corner office of one of South Africa’s major retailers, in this case Clicks. While the consensus is that it will take another 100 years to fully close the gender pay gap, Clicks embarked eight years ago on a mission to advance towards parity and observe the principle of fair pay. Today, women in the business earn 2% more than men on a one-to-one basis, and gender bias in performance reviews has been eliminated. At the beginning of the process, women in the organisation earned around 10% less than men. The initial adjustment naturally saw an increase in overheads across the business. But as Engelbrecht points out, this has been balanced by a reduction in staff turnover, competitive performance and a share that remains popular with investors. Clicks didn’t stop there though – it now also makes a contribution to women taking maternity leave over and above the standard UIF payment. And in the last year, the Group has invested over R90m in skills training favouring almost 1,600 women in the business.

Comment: Powerful stuff from a visionary business. This kind of progress is a no-brainer, but it requires commitment.

A couple weeks back, Pick n Pay launched its new Crafted Collection premium private label range, which focused on food and groceries, with 70 products live and another 100 expected by the end of the year. 90% of the range will be locally produced. At launch, we of the press all compared the range to Checkers’ more established Forage and Feast offering – it currently offers 216 products across 34 categories – and Shoprite has been quick to pick up on the threat. Both ranges have a deep and classy blue in the logo, a fact to which Shoprite has objected. Pick n Pay has pointed out that blue has long been part of its identity, that the Pick n Pay logo appears on its range while there is no retailer branding on the Forage and Feast range, and that in any case, the two ranges are hardly likely to appear side by side on any shelf in the foreseeable future. Shoprite has agreed to hit pause on any legal action while discussions are underway. Still, a strongly identifiable premium private label range can be a powerful differentiator: a recent study by Forbes indicates that 87% of punters are considering private label these days – and shopping across retailers to get better value.

Comment: Glowering at each other across the flatlands of the fairest Cape, Shoprite and Pick n Pay give us a rivalry for the ages.

Upping its sustainability game incrementally this week is Shoprite, which has just bought over 100 Scania Euro V trucks, the most fuel-efficient trucks in Southern Africa, offering proven fuel savings of around 10%, and lower CO2 and NOx emissions. The rigs will slot into the Group’s sophisticated transport route planning and scheduling system which already optimises energy efficiency. Related, "strong>Massmart is installing a further 150 building management systems (BMSs) at its stores over the next year and a half, joining the 155 already in place courtesy of its partnership with the Green Wave Group and industrial technology multinational Schneider Electric. “Massmart is already on target to achieve annualised energy savings of at least R15m in 2022, recouping its entire investment within 12 months,” says the business. Finally, peeking under the bonnet of who owns what, Dis-Chem management own around 4.3% of the company’s stock, worth a total of around R1.3bn. This indicates a fair degree of insider confidence in the prospects for the business according to those in the know.

Comment: Reducing energy consumption represents massive savings for retailers – and big business for those helping them achieve this bottom-line goal.

Walmart was looking a little shaky, forecast-wise, a couple weeks ago. This week, it has moderated its prediction for a decline in HEPS from 11 – 13% to just 9 – 11%, after a brutal price-slashing spree in which it attempted to unload the $61bn in inventory it was sitting on at the end of the first quarter. Walmart believes it’ll grow sales around +5% in the third quarter in a blistering economic and competitive environment. In Poland, SPAR – which as you know is owned by SPAR South Africa – has lost almost a third of its member retailers, who quit their contracts in response to new terms that require them to buy around 40% of their goods from the Jolly Green One. SPAR bought out troubled Polish retail group Piotr i Paweł for a song in 2019 and shortly after acquired the SPAR Poland wholesale licence. It’s been open about its struggles to gain traction in that tricky market since.

Comment: This will be a setback for SPAR’s hybrid model in a geography that doesn’t seem to fully understand it.

South Africa’s formal independent trade – the over 1,500 stores that sit between the ‘Big Six’ corporates and the vast informal sector, competing with the former and serving the latter – has pulled off the miracle of survival in a changing and often brutal trading landscape. Some of them have begun to adapt to the new post-COVID normal by offering online ordering and delivery. But new threats face them – including the rise of a new generation of online-only outfits offering a range of ancillary services, including financial service and analytics. “The competition is fierce from these providers, which aren’t tied down to physical stores and are able to innovate quickly and bring new products to the trade,” says Mac Mabidilala, Product Executive at Trade Intelligence.

Comment: For more on the rise of e-commerce in the formal independent sector, have a look at this article . Or order our Formal Independent Report over here.

An ugly battle has broken out in the food industry over the correct taxonomy for plant-based meat-replacement foods. In late June, the Department of Agriculture released directives to the effect that processed meat regulations specify that certain products such as burgers, nuggets, sausages, patties and meatballs must contain certain quantities of meat. The Food Safety Agency – a sort of police force appointed by the Department – last week told retailers and producers it would seize vegan products with names that it claims are reserved for meat off the shelves and out of the fridges, to considerable cost for all concerned. The Consumer Goods Council (CGCSA) argues that these very regulations in fact state that meat imitation products are exempt from its rules. Furthermore, it says, the notice of the seizures took it by surprise after two months of otherwise amicable negotiations. The SA Meat Processors Association (SAMPA), in the meantime, argues that it doesn’t have an issue with terms like soya mince and sausages, but draws the line at plant-based prawns and biltong.

Comment: An issue which seems destined to be resolved in the courts.

Tiger Brands is joining pretty much all of SA’s retailers in going solar, announcing that it plans to have 65% of its manufacturing electricity needs sourced from sustainable energy by 2030, and has plans for onsite solar power, and other renewable energy solutions, at 35 manufacturing sites across South Africa, beginning with an initial four. “Harnessing the power of natural energy sources is first and foremost about minimising our impact on the environment and doing our part to reduce reliance and strain on the national grid so that more South Africans have access to the resource,” says Chief Manufacturing Officer Derek McKernan. Speaking of sustainability, after almost 60 years in service, Sprite will be taking the colour green out of its iconic bottles. This, says parent Coca-Cola, will increase the recyclability of the single-use plastic bottles, as coloured plastics are usually separated out in recycling. Finally, on the news of a +24.3% increase in first-half global sales, Heineken CEO Dolf van den Brink has disputed Diageo’s assertion that wine and beer markets are losing out to spirits.

Comment: Put those panels up people. It’s a no-brainer.

A metric we don’t often report on in these pages is household wealth, or the difference between household outstanding liabilities and the value of their assets, as measured annually in the Momentum-Unisa household wealth index. This year, the index established that the overall value of household assets is estimated to have decreased by R1.19tr, or 6.1%, from the first quarter to the second, when its overall value was R18.15tr. Household assets include non-financial assets such as property, and financial assets like pension funds and long-term insurance. Holdings of this latter class declined -10% over the period in question, indicating that households have become increasingly risk-averse in this unsettled ambit, preferring investments with lower uncertainty. How does this affect the great industry we call home? “Should this lower level of household wealth persist, it will contribute to slower growth in household consumption expenditure, which in turn should adversely affect economic growth and employment,” says Momentum economist Johann van Tonder.

Comment: Duly warned.