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While not actually building roads and hospitals like that other red empire in Africa, Shoprite are nevertheless making their presence felt both commercially and socially in Nigeria. A year ago, they launched their Help-Change-A-Life CSR initiative in Lagos, where funds from the outreach are now channeled to ten institutions, most recently the Little Sisters of the Elderly Poor in Enugu. It’s a characteristically simple but ingenious scheme, whereby Shoprite provides a platform for its customers to contribute to the needs of the greater community by simply collecting change from any of its willing customers, who have currently forked out N2million to deserving homes for various needy groupings, including children and the handicapped.

Comment: An initiative for which it has received some deserved press in that giant west African hellhole country.

Chairman Ackerman the Younger is waxing all Old Testament again – this time weighing in thunderously on the Black Tuesday Bill, which, he feels will create an air of distress and a sense of crisis. But it’s been a big week for the Big Blue generally: the Federal Court of Australia has ruled to dismiss the appeal by the Australian competeetion authoriddies against the sale of Franklins to Metcash, which will place a whacking R1.4billion into the currently cobwebby Pick n Pay coffers, a sum which will be reinvested into the business, at least in part to continue the rollout of centralised distribution. And they’ve also reached agreement with SACCAWU on workforce flexibility which will save the jobs of those 3,000 workers previously under threat of retrenchment.

Comment: Welcome back, big guy. Although, yes, we know, you’d never actually gone away.

At their AGM last week, the increasingly well-suited gents over at Massmart reported that total sales growth was 15.2% with comparable sales growth ticking along at 8.8%, and year-to-date sales inflation running at 0.8%. Grant Pattison noted that South Africa had moved into an inflationary phase, but taking a leaf from the book of noted social commentator Gareth Ackerman, opined that taking into account the general shakiness of the world economy and SA’s iffy GDP outlook, it was a good thing that interest rates were being kept at their historically low levels. Makro and Masscash were notable performers for the group, with growth figures of 17.3% and 15.9% respectively. And in a break from tradition, Mr P found it in himself to sound an optimistic note for the six months ahead, suggesting that ongoing sales performance will be strong, supported by its present investments in price, growth, capacity and integration.

Comment: There. A whole Massmart story, with nary a mention of you know whom. Big feller. American chap.

Woolies apparently have the reputation around the “industry” of being a tricky client to work with. Don’t ask us, ask them. Because that’s what they told the Jupiter Drawing Room when they sacked that august agency two days ago, with no warning and two months’ notice: “You’ve done great work, you’ve managed us well as a client with a reputation for being difficult, but we’re taking it all in-house.” The reason Woolies gave for this is in a nutshell cost-cutting in anticipation of a devilishly tricky 2012 as the fallout from the Eurozone crisis rages on. JDR in the meantime, are looking at letting more than 20 staff go, and have graciously waived aspects of their restraint agreement with Woolies in the hopes that some of those unfortunates will be re-employed by the Dapper One.

Comment: Of course, bringing an agency in-house is not without its own costs. For example, you have to employ an expert cat-herder, and they don’t come cheap.

In an interesting eggsperiment in brand development, Nulaid have hit upon the obvious but novel idea of branding eggs in the same way that one would washing powder or breakfast cereal or indeed trainers, ie nicely and with some thought, rather than running misshapen boxes made of recycled newsprint through the roneo machine and hoping for the best like everyone else seems to do. Eggcited GM Roelof Viljoen says the aim of Nulaid’s new “the Fresher the Better” campaign is to bring to life Nulaid’s vision of being recognised as the national supplier of quality shell and liquid egg products and build brand preference. The fresh new look will be rolled out across packaging, in-store promotions, internal branding, commercial vehicle branding, bus branding and above-the-line elements.

Comment: Eggsactly the sort of thing that has been missing from the industry.

Revenue was up 6% to R20.479 billion over at the lair of the Stripy One, and operating income increased by 7.6% to R3.2 billion for the year which ended, after a fashion, on the 30th of September, which we are assured, hath 30 days. Of which that one was the thirtieth. On the profit front, pre-tax takings increased by 19.1% to R3.6 billion. Tiger, as you know, is a business which earns a substantial portion of its daily crust by buying and selling other outfits. How has that worked out for them, this twelve-month past? Income from associates, including Empresas Carozzi, Oceana Group and the newly-acquired UAC Foods increased by 5.4% to R265.4 million. They’re expecting things to continue tough in 2012, but will continue to place their faith in a balanced portfolio of brands and expanding continental footprint.

Comment: And why shouldn’t they, after all. Eh?

GDP growth for the third quarter of 2011 was just 1.4%, you will be alarmed to know, or exactly 1/5 of what it needs to be over a 20-year period (you in front here? Yes that’s right, 7%. Yes, for 20 years) in order to deal with unemployment and poverty, and up only 0.1% from the second quarter, when we were teetering on the edge of stagflation. The good news, if such it can be called, is that the weakness of the dear old Ront has perked the manufacturing sector up a bit, although not to the extent that we are flooding China with plastic machine guns or Brazil with copycat confectionary brands.

Comment: There is a growing school of thought that says that the “norm” of economic growth was in fact an anomaly which happened globally in the post war years and is incapable of repetition. To which we respond, oh, hell.

You were wondering, were you not, as your planning for the FY13 gathers pace, where you could get hold of a copy of the latest Executive Summary of our Trade Profiles. Wonder no more. You can get it here on our website, which also provides a vast range of other resources invaluable to anyone doing business within the South African consumer goods retail and wholesale sector.

And in sporting news, the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) Cats put up a spirited performance to capture the SPAR Netball League national crown with a thrilling 49–34 win against Francistown side TASC. We’re quoting. Of significance here is SPAR’s multinational campaign to dominate the arena of women’s sports, and its ongoing presence in Botswana where it faces stiffening competition from a crowd called Choppies.

Unilever is suing the sharkskin-suited mis-spellers at PR firm Kapital Mindz R4.6million over the AxeJet debacle of 2007, and is in turn being counter-sued for R7.6million by the business. At issue are monies which Unilever said it had paid over for the hire of the airliners, and which Kapital Mindz has said it legitimately and provably used for other stuff.