Over the past three years or so, our Joburg team has often shared stories and experiences from a gem of a petrol forecourt store in Rosebank called The Pantry. Its offering is neatly summed up by its slogan of “fancy but easy”, a place where shoppers receive a very premium convenience store experience, complete with delicious gourmet-style grab-and-go meals, wines, local produce, good coffee and baked goods, 24 hours a day. Now, the business will be opening a new, standalone store in Hazelwood, Pretoria on 1 Nov, and a third store in Bassonia, JHB, later in the month. Hazelwood will feature Pantry favourites like pizza, burgers, ready-to-go bowls and sandwiches, and thanks to the extra space at the location, it will allow for an expanded grocery offering. The business also recently announced that a new pop-up store has opened in the Mall of Africa Crystal Court from 16 October 2025 to February 2026, providing hungry shoppers with some of their best fare.

Comment: We are big fans of this business and would just love to see it grow across the country.

In an expansion of its value-added services, Pick n Pay has partnered with electronic ticketing provider Ticketpro. Available in selected stores around the country, shoppers can now buy tickets for a wide range of events at Money Counters or selected tills without the need for an app as the service is integrated into Pick n Pay’s system. “By integrating ticket sales into our existing POS system, which already offers customers access to Webticket events, we’ve made it easier to manage everyday tasks in one place,” explains Deven Moodley, Executive Head of Value-Added Services, Financial Services and Mobile Division, underlining that the rollout is all about enhancing convenience for shoppers. Still within the Pick n Pay ‘family’, newly-listed Boxer is building on its MVNO presence (that’s Mobile Virtual Network Operator to you). Now known as Boxercom, the souped-up service will integrate into its B Rewards programme – buy products, gain rewards points, get free data, that kind of thing. Every man and his pooch seems to be an MVNO these days – Shoprite, SPAR, TFG, Capitec, FNB and Standard Bank have all launched their own services, and Absa’s is soon to come. Most of them piggyback on the Cell C network, but as in the case of Boxercom, MTN is also seizing the opportunity to grow this income stream. And lastly, if you were trained up and ready to run the Cape Town Marathon this last weekend, we’re very sorry about the last-minute cancellation of the event and hope the weather gods will be kinder next year. On hearing the news, Woolworths, the official food sponsor of the marathon, quickly sprang into action to ensure that the fresh produce prepared for the 24,000 runners would not go to waste. By 10am, all available food – 26,000 bananas, 20,000 Clemengolds, 280kg of potatoes, 10kg of dried fruit, 5,000 apples, 4,800 dates, 1,800 sandwiches and 600 hot cross buns – had been collected by 18 charities to be distributed to those in need.

Comment: Good on you Woolies, for turning the disappointment of some into the joy of many.

A couple of stories from Amazon this week, and as usual, they’re the kind that can really shake things up. In the US, new Amazon Pharmacy kiosks will allow patients to pick up medication within minutes of seeing a doctor. Currently available at One Medical offices (an Amazon subsidiary providing membership-based primary healthcare services), all patients have to do after the appointment is send their script to Amazon Pharmacy via the app, where they can choose to get their meds from the kiosk. The order is reviewed by a remote pharmacist, instruction labels are stuck on the packs, and out pop the meds… much like a vending machine. The kiosks are stocked with the most commonly prescribed medicines, viz. antibiotics, inhalers, cold, flu and blood pressure meds. For anything that requires refrigeration or more strictly controlled substances, a trip to the good old drug store will still be required. Then in the UK, Amazon will be closing its Fresh stores – every single one of them – to focus more on online groceries. This follows the closure of several Fresh stores in the US too, which we reported on a few months back. Staying with an American behemoth, Walmart has hit pause on hiring people who require H-1B visas (i.e. skilled foreign workers) because of the Trump administration’s new $100,000 fee that businesses are now required to pay per foreign employee hired. Walmart is the biggest retail user of the H-1B visa programme, with more than 2,000 issued in the first half of the year alone. Now that it has to pay an extra $100k for each one, second thoughts arise.

Comment: Good for all those skilled US workers who may have been overlooked, but not great if those skills are lacking, and top talent becomes too expensive to ‘import’. Although AI seems to be taking over, we still need human talent to drive innovation.

Just as we were bemoaning the fact that our manufacturers and suppliers have been quiet of late, we get smacked with this humdinger. Premier Group is going to buy Rhodes Food Group (RFG), bringing Rhodes tinned products, Bull Brand corned beef and Mama’s pies (to name a few) under the same roof as household staples such as Snowflake, BB Bread, Iwisa maize meal and Manhattan’s sweets (marshmallows are staples in many homes to get them through to kiddies’ bedtime, trust us). Not a cent will be paid by Premier to conclude the deal, however. It will instead give RFG’s owners shares in the newly enlarged Premier Group at a value of 1 Premier share for every 7 RFG shares. The transaction, which values RFG at almost R5.8bn, will result in RFG shareholders holding a 22.5% stake in Premier and will lead to RFG’s delisting from the JSE. Overall, the markets were chuffed with the proposition, and RFG’s major shareholders have pledged to vote in favour, making approval a near certainty. Although the deal still requires Competition Commission approval, Premier is pretty confident that it will come to pass, since there is minimal product and category overlap between the two businesses. The combined entity will be valued at R28bn-R30bn, not too far off from SA food giant Tiger Brands. It also means that Premier will now have a foot in the door with retailers like Woolies through RFG’s private brand products.

Comment: Interestingly, this move goes somewhat against the grain at a time when many local and international manufacturers are trimming down their vast portfolios (see our next story too). Not to say that either one or the other is right or wrong, of course.

A little reminder, dear readers: The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) does not make its money from selling bottles of fizzy drink. In fact, apart from creating and owning its brands, it ‘only’ manufactures the concentrate or syrup, according to its very secret recipe, used to make its iconic drinks. The businesses that actually make money from selling bottles of the stuff are TCCC’s bottling partners, like (in Africa’s case) Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA), which buy the syrup, add water, sugar, sweeteners, carbonate it, put it in bottles and then distribute it for all of us to enjoy. Now, here’s where our story starts. There’s a particularly large bottling partner, Coca-Cola HBC (or Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company), which operates on an international scale in Europe and Africa, and earlier this week, we learned that it will be acquiring a 75% majority stake in CCBA. This will mean that CCBA will (finally) list on the JSE in what is expected to be a mega initial public offering, and make Coca-Cola HBC the second-largest Coca-Cola bottling partner globally by volume, adding 14 African markets to its existing operations in Nigeria and Egypt. The other 25% not owned by Coca-Cola HBC will be retained by TCCC. The deal is expected to conclude towards the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.

Comment: This transition is a major part of TCCC’s global strategy to step back from direct bottling operations, returning it to a capital-light, high-margin IP and marketing powerhouse. It is also a profound demonstration of long-term confidence in the African continent.

StatsSA’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) for September 2025 was published just yesterday, giving us those numbers that, in layman’s terms, track ‘inflation’. Total CPI came out at +3.4% year-on-year, which was similar to last month’s number at +3.3% and Jul 2025 at +3.5%. Taking a look at the standouts: Housing and utilities: Increased +4.5% year-on-year, with electricity up +8.2% and water +7.0%. Rental prices grew +3.0%, ticking up from +2.5% and varying across houses (+2.7%), townhouses (+5.4%) and flats (+3.5%). Food and non-alcoholic beverages: Also increased +4.5% compared to last year, with meat prices continuing to increase (+11.7% year-on-year) because of the impact of Foot-and-Mouth Disease on beef supply. Vegetable inflation dropped to only +1.2%, with potatoes 17.3% cheaper than last year and cabbage 2.5% down. Under ‘milk, other dairy and eggs’, eggs came out 8.2% cheaper than last year, and milk is also cheaper (around 1% to 2% depending on preference). This has not translated into lower prices for cheese, unfortunately, which is over +6% more expensive than last year. Fuel prices remained lower than last year for September (i.e. deflation) at -2.2%. Petrol went down -4c/litre, while diesel increased +56c/l. However, from Oct 2025, the 13-month deflation streak ends as prices creep up.

Comment: While it sounds like good news, there are some categories where inflation is double-digit, like medical insurance, which is costing punters +10.6% more than last year. There is also some variation across provinces, where, for example, inflation on electricity varies from +11.5% in Limpopo to +5.7% in the Western Cape. Overall, households remain under pressure heading into the festive season.