The short version: SPAR leadership changes focus on building capabilities required to better serve its retailers

There’s quite a bit of moving and shaking going on within SPAR’s leadership at the moment – all good news, though, all good news, as the business seeks to stabilise things after a challenging few years. The changes being made are all inspired by a vital group of people within the SPAR’s ecosystem. Over to newly appointed CEO, Reeza Isaacs, to explain: “We know where we need to be better, and we’re acting on it. That starts with the everyday experience of our retailers”. Looking at the appointments:

• • Managing Director: Grocery and Liquor, Jerome Jacobs.  A 30-year SPAR veteran, Jacobs is described as a “retailer at heart” and steps into this new position, created specifically to sharpen SPAR’s operational execution. Jacobs will focus on supply chain efficiency and consistency, improving DC performance, ensuring pricing is consistent and competitive, and strengthening the crucial link between DCs and stores.
  • Group Chief Marketing Officer, John Bradshaw. With 20 years of retail experience, 10 years at Pick n Pay, and, most recently, Group Customer Exec at Pepkor, Bradshaw is tasked with bolstering how SPAR attracts and wins customers, strengthening the customer value proposition while ensuring retailers have the tools and information they need to attract their specific shoppers
  • Group Chief Financial Officer, Megan Pydigadu, previously Group Chief Operating Officer. Coming from her recent operational and commercial role, Pydigadu has deep and practical knowledge of how SPAR operates across its value chain, knowledge that can be applied to and integrated with SPAR’s financial strategies.

The short version: Choppies’ attempt to sell Jwayelani to local investment company falls through

In September last year, we reported how Choppies was to sell its Jwayelani chain of 45 stores and a meat processing factory to local investment company, the Shingai Group. Read about that here to refresh your memory. The deal is now off, however, after Shingai formally terminated negotiations earlier this month following “a comprehensive review”. When news of the deal first reached us, plans were for Shingai to revitalise the chain of mainly KZN and Eastern Cape-based stores. The transaction was seen as an exciting opportunity for black ownership of the stores, as well as reshaping the supply chain, while opening doors for local producers. But it wasn’t to be. And for Choppies, the collapsed deal now means that it must find another suitor for its South African assets, which it has been looking to let go of for some time so that it can focus on its more profitable (and homegrown) Botswana operations.

The short version: Smart Shopper turns 15 | PnP takes a stand against sweatshops | The new citrus at Checkers

A very happy birthday to Pick n Pay’s Smart Shopper programme, which this year is turning 15. Like most teenagers, Smart Shopper is keen to party in a big way, and has been doing so by offering 15x points on selected products until today, 23 April, both in-store and on asap!. Smart Shopper has been going large with its points over the last few months, offering 2x and 3x points here and there, as well as 5x points on April Fool’s day (no joke). It has also been awarding 5x points to defend certain stores from the competition, a recent example being Pick n Pay’s flagship On Nicol store, which offered the extra points when a Woolworths Food Market and Checkers Fresh X store opened at the new mixed-use Sandton Gate precinct, less than a kilometre away. 

Still with Pick n Pay, just this week it has cancelled a contract with one of its clothing suppliers, which was sourcing products from sweatshops in Newcastle, KZN. A video that went viral on the socials earlier this year showed how staff at the sites were working 18-hour days in terrible conditions. Pick n Pay said that the factory was not approved to produce its clothing and an investigation revealed that this was the supplier’s first order from the factory in question. The products found there will not be sold.

In closing, there is a new orange in town, the Spanish-grown ONIX™, and it can be found at select Checkers stores in the Western Cape and Gauteng. This distinctive dark‑red-brown-purple-skinned and stripy blood orange, with orangy-red flesh, is not lab-grown, but a natural mutation of the Sanguinelli blood orange, discovered in Seville, Spain. This is not the first time that an orange has glitched, with mutations occurring more than you’d think. But it’s not terribly often that a mutated fruit is found to be exceptional enough to be grafted and farmed at scale, as in the case of ONIX™. What makes it so exceptional? Its perfect balance of sweetness and acidity, its very high levels of antioxidants, similar to those found in berries, and its striking appearance, making it highly Instagrammable – a key characteristic ensuring any product’s success these days.

The short version: Barcode technology to be replaced by QR codes

Do you remember the days before barcodes, when product prices had to be manually punched into the cash register? If, like us, you do… you’re no spring chicken. But back to the news – barcodes were first introduced in the US back in 1974, and since then have been rolled out across the globe. Now they are undergoing a new evolution, changing from bars to QR codes. And Tesco has claimed the title of being the first UK retailer to roll out QRs, choosing to focus on its own-label sausage range as its test case. What’s the advantage? QR codes can hold more information, like nutritional content and batch numbers or expiration dates. The potential here is that a checkout scanner could block the sale of an expired product, as well as making it easier for retailers to deal with product recalls. Then there are other applications, like direct-to-consumer marketing. The global goal set by GS1 (the organisation that manages barcode standards) is for retail POS systems worldwide to be capable of scanning 2D barcodes (like QR codes) by the end of 2027… this may be a stretch. But Tesco is good to go, having already upgraded its systems. If the sausages go well, look out for full range implementation sooner rather than later.