South Africa’s FMCG market is still growing, but opportunities are becoming more fragmented as financially constrained shoppers change where, how and what they buy, while retailers and brands increasingly compete beyond their traditional channels.
This was one of the clearest themes to emerge from the 2026 Trade Intelligence (Ti) Retail Conference, in partnership with Nedbank, held in Johannesburg on 3 September, where leaders from across retail, FMCG, technology and financial services explored the changing retail trading environment and where businesses can look for growth.
The starting point is a consumer environment that remains challenging.
Nicky Weimar, Chief Economist at Nedbank, said consumer spending and retail remain in positive territory, but momentum has weakened during 2026. “We still have growth. We still have a growing industry. We still have growing consumer spending. But … we’ve seen a very clear loss of momentum.”
Real retail sales grew just +0.4% in the second quarter of 2026, and Nedbank expects consumer spending and retail growth to remain positive but softer over the next two years. Trade Intelligence’s own market view points to a similar dynamic within FMCG. Ti estimates that the market grew +6.2% in 2025 against food inflation of +4.2%, suggesting underlying growth closer to +2%.
Growth is also not being distributed evenly across the market. “People are often looking for the big untapped market or the big growth opportunity,” said Andrea Slabber, Insights Lead at Trade Intelligence. “But what we are increasingly seeing are smaller pockets of growth, which requires businesses to look much more closely at where opportunities exist.”
Channel blurring is reshaping both growth opportunities and competition
One of the clearest places these opportunities are emerging is between traditional retail and consumption channels.
Over the past decade, the six major corporate retail groups have expanded their collective store footprint by around 4,000 stores to more than 11,000, with retailers increasingly pursuing growth beyond grocery through categories and formats such as health and beauty, clothing and pets. At the same time, the distinction between supermarkets, discounters, e-commerce, wholesale and specialist FMCG channels is becoming less clear from a shopper’s perspective.
The same movement is occurring at category level.
Quick-service restaurant brands are extending into at-home consumption through retail products, while supermarkets continue to build their own ready-to-eat and foodservice propositions. Health, wellness and beauty products are appearing in convenience, out-of-home and non-traditional retail environments.
But channel blurring creates a competitive threat as well as a growth opportunity.
“While you’re spotting growth somewhere, you’re actually biting into someone else’s growth and someone is probably looking at your space to grab a bit of yours,” said Nicola Allen, Senior Analyst at Trade Intelligence.
This is also evident in business-to-business sales (B2B), where the expectations created by consumer e-commerce are increasingly influencing how business customers want to buy. Mark Cotton, Head of B2B Ecommerce at Shoprite Group, said the B2B and B2C (business-to-consumer) worlds are “moving closer together”, although wholesale customers continue to have distinct requirements around volumes, service and relationships.
Convenience retailers are facing a similar shift. Domnick Sipho Nkhatu, Head of Convenience at bp, described the emergence of the “Uber customer” who expects products and services immediately and increasingly judges convenience according to the need being solved, rather than the traditional definition of a forecourt store. “The future is now. The Uber customer has arrived. Believe you me, they don’t want it tomorrow. They want it now.”
Nkhatu argued that this creates an opportunity for forecourt retailers to broaden their role, incorporating services such as click-and-collect and personal care into a more complete convenience proposition.
Precision is more important as the market fragments
For businesses looking to pursue these new opportunities, however, simply entering another channel or adding another service is not enough. Allen suggested three questions should remain at the centre of any growth decision: Is this something the shopper wants? Is it something they need? Is it something they can afford?
The need for greater precision surfaced repeatedly throughout the conference. In convenience, retailers described segmenting stores and promotions according to the communities and missions they serve. In informal trade, participants highlighted how product demand and purchasing rhythms can vary between locations and at different times in the month. In B2B, the challenge becomes more complex still, with the buyer, business owner, chef and end consumer potentially having different needs and priorities.
For suppliers, this means the traditional approach of developing a broad channel strategy and repeating it across customers is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. The opportunity may sit in a particular format, occasion, route to market or shopper mission rather than an entire channel.
Data can help businesses identify those opportunities more precisely, but speakers repeatedly cautioned against treating data or technology as an end in itself. Vincent Viviers, E-Commerce, Innovation and Digital Transformation Executive at Pick n Pay, said the starting point for retail media and customer engagement should remain the shopper. “You’ve got to put the customer at the heart of this.”
But he added that customer reach must be supported by data, transparency and measurable outcomes if businesses are to understand whether their investment is actually working.
Adrian Naidoo, Head of Bmedia at Boxer, similarly argued that pricing, media and the in-store experience cannot be considered independently. “The pricing drives an outcome. The media drives an outcome. The in-store experience drives an outcome. All of them together will help you win with your customer, and you can’t separate them.”
Innovation cannot compensate for weak execution
Alongside discussions ranging from artificial intelligence to digital commerce and retail media, another consistent message was that innovation needs to strengthen retail fundamentals rather than distract from them.
Rudi Nienaber, Data and Technology Executive at Smollan, cautioned businesses against developing an AI strategy independently of their wider commercial objectives. “Don’t start with an AI strategy; start with your business strategy.” He argued that businesses should build the data foundations needed to support AI while experimenting with areas where they can deliver genuine value.
Cotton made a similar point from an operational perspective. “The fundamentals still apply.” Before businesses layer on new technology or digital experiences, he said they still need to be able to accurately describe and price products, take payment and deliver orders on time and in full. “If you don’t deliver the fundamentals, you’re not in the game,” he said.
Michael Smollan, Chief Brand Experience Officer at Smollan, extended the argument to the relationship between marketing and sales. His message was that creating demand and making a product easy to purchase can no longer be treated as separate activities. “Getting chosen and getting bought are one job, not two departments.”
For Slabber, the implication is that businesses need to combine a broader view of where growth may emerge with much closer observation of what is happening in the market. “In addition to looking at global examples, I really recommend all the stakeholders to do trade visits, walk the trade, immerse themselves in the trade, because that’s where you’ll see these very interesting shifts in dynamics,” she said.
As traditional channel boundaries continue to loosen, the growth opportunity for FMCG businesses is expanding – but so is the competitive field. The businesses best placed to capture those pockets of growth will not necessarily be those making the biggest moves, but those which identify the right customer opportunity, execute against it consistently and adapt as the market continues to shift.
About Trade Intelligence
Trade Intelligence, a Smollan company, is South Africa’s leading source of consumer goods retail research, insights and capability-building solutions that enable effective and profitable trading relationships and inform future-fit strategies. Ti’s 20+ years of expertise covers the FMCG environment, the major retail and wholesale players, the informal retail channel as well as emerging retail and shopper trends.
