As you probably assumed, Checkers Sixty60 drivers are not formally employed by Shoprite, but fall under Pingo, a joint venture with RTT On-Demand – which the Competition Tribunal gave the nod for Checkers to acquire outright back in October. This has brought in-house a number of headaches of the sort that South African businesses like to outsource to labour brokers and the like. For example, remuneration: the average Sixty60 driver earns around R7,600, with a guaranteed daily minimum fare of R350, but with fuel expenses of R3,200 monthly, and weekly motorbike rental of R400, leaves a net income of just R2,800. This has raised eyebrows. Then there’s the thorny matter of immigration: only 23% of the delivery workforce are South African. On the latter, Pingo is actively recruiting South African drivers, with multiple training centres and a 10-week training programme. Regarding safety, Shoprite has implemented improved measures for drivers, such as better equipment and uniforms, and slows down deliveries when weather is unfavourable.

Comment: The gig economy is rough. And R2,800 take home for the toughest job on the road is peanuts.

South Africa’s retail industry is showing signs of resilience as it heads into the Black Friday and silly season periods, according to NIQ’s latest State of the Retail Nation report. 42% of South African punters say they’re in a better financial position than they were a year ago. And the 30% who say they’re worse off, report that it’s because of increased living costs, the economic slowdown, and job insecurity. But still: “Retailers have seen a welcome improvement in consumer confidence ahead of the two most important trading months of the year,” says Zak Haeri, Managing Director for NIQ in South Africa. “Factors such as a pause in load shedding, an increase in the Social Relief Distress (SRD) grant, lower fuel prices, and moderating inflation have all contributed to a more optimistic retail environment.” He notes that consumers are making purposeful choices, focusing on in-home activities, pre-planned purchases, and waste avoidance.

Comment: Food for thought for those with a widescreen TV or a 12-pack of Ultramel to sell.

Big up to Dis-Chem for the launch of its first hydroponic vegetable garden at the Ubuhle Bezwe Children’s Home and Soup Kitchen in Tembisa. The hydroponic garden has the capability to grow 4,000 crops in under six weeks, including greens, pepper, beans, peas and tomatoes, and uses up to 95% less water than traditional farming methods. Also Dis-Chem, it is stocking some viral thing called the Dubai Chocolate that it saw on Tik Tok, for R400, and people are buying it. Next Woolies has launched its own probe into the provenance of unlabeled pilchards that were branded “Lucky Star” and packed in Woolworths-labelled cartons. It suspects that the fake fish was part of a batch it had already rejected, and is leaning on suppliers to dispose of such stock timeously rather than letting it fall into the wrong hands. Also Woolies: an updated personal care range, using 80% natural ingredients, across the board from bath and body to haircare, as well as a Chuckles range including a body butter, scrub and body wash inspired by the retailer’s iconic chocolate brand. Woolies has made it perfectly clear that although the products contain cocoa butter, and look deliciously edible, they are in fact not – the range is the result of an April Fool’s prank gone right when Woolies shoppers asked the retailer to make its fake Chuckles beauty products a reality.

Comment: Woolies is becoming a big player in the personal care space. Manufacturers not too proud for a little white-label work should take note.

“Creators are the life blood of social commerce and we wanted to get closer to that,” says Walmart Chief Marketing Officer William White. But who are they, these creators, and how is Walmart getting closer to them? Basically, they’re niche direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands launched online – think Mr. Beast (or don’t if you’d prefer not to) or Logan Paul’s Prime Hydration – by strident and ambitious Gen Z-ers in hoodies. Prime Hydration, for e.g. achieved massive scale at Walmart when it launched in 2022, hitting $250m in sales in its first year. And 1UP Candy, brainchild of someone called FaZe Rug launched in May 2022 with a traditional DTC website, then pivoted to Walmart a year later. Today, the brand’s website has dropped DTC and simply directs shoppers to find products at their local Walmart stores.

Comment: Seismic. Products created in the markets they serve and going straight to the big retailers – cutting out the entire ecosystem of the great legacy brand builders that have dominated our sector for the better part of two centuries now.

Some fairly tidy interims from the Premier Group for the period through September, with Group revenue up +3.7% and operating profit +17.3%. Fair enough. What’s up for the rest of the FY they tell us we have to call ’25? Buy, buy, buy apparently. Premier has R1bn to spend, and it intends to do it on diversification, as it is a teensy little bit the victim of its own success at this point – according to CEO Kobus Gertenbach it is a big enough player in most of the categories in which it operates, and acquisitions in these areas might see it falling foul of the competition cops. It recently, for example, acquired a 30% stake in rice importer Goldkeys International, to gain exposure to that bland but nutritious staple. What’s the thinking? High maize prices. “I would expect there to be quite a significant substitution, where consumers consume more rice and eat less maize,” says Kobus.

Comment: Smart move. The entry of Premier into rice will shake things up a bit.

A rough week for agrochemical firm Monsanto after the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) blocked the release of its genetically modified maize, which had originally been approved for release in 2015, highlighting government failures in applying mandatory environmental safety checks. The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) argued before the court that Monsanto’s studies failed to identify credible hazards, lacked data on food processing effects, and presented no clear record of safe human exposure. Also, rough week for former Tiger Brands procurement manager Derrick Sandragasan, pursued by the Striped One in a multimillion-rand claim for alleged collusion, siphoning more than R50m in overpayments to Nurscon, a packaging supplier which numbered his daughter among its staff and furnished the family Sandragasan with lavish overseas trips. And finally, Unilever is looking at getting shot of some of its Dutch food brands, including Unox soups and Conimex seasonings as part of CEO Hein “The Axeman” Schumacher’s turnaround focus on its biggest “power” labels.

Comment: Certain gung-ho investors are saying that Unilever should get out of food altogether – something Schumacher has not apparently ruled out.

Since the beginning of September 2024, there have been a total of 890 reported incidents of food-borne illnesses across all provinces – notably in Gauteng and KZN. And in the last few weeks, food-borne illnesses have claimed the lives of at least 22 of our nation’s children. This to paraphrase President Ramaphosa, who noted that six of the deaths were attributable to traces of Terbufos, a highly toxic commercial fertiliser used illegally in informal settlements to control rats. In spazas, which often lack proper safe food storage and hand- and dishwashing facilities, food is often stored alongside pesticides and detergents. The President last week ordered that all spaza shops and other food handling facilities must be registered within the municipalities in which they operate within 21 days; any non-compliant establishment that does not meet all health standards and requirements will be closed. He also announced a raft of other measures to get these pesticides off the street.

Comment: So – no foreign traders directly involved, just an infestation of rats which thrive when a municipality fails in its waste management duties.