Once upon a time, aficionados of the advertisers' dark arts may recall, Shoprite ran a campaign obliquely targeted at Pick n Pay, which went something along the lines of “Don't change your lifestyle, change your supermarket”. Then, on the launch of the Smart Shopper campaign, Shoprite led with ‘Be Smart. Always pay low prices”.  Pick n Pay have come right back at them, a year and a half and a recession or two later, with some hard-hitting competitive advertising of their own. They ran an ad for their Smart Shopper programme this week, which posed the naughty rhetorical question “Change my supermarket?” to which the cheeky reply was “That's pointless,” which is a reference to the points you will earn shopping at Pick n Pay, but not at their competition. The problem is, who is aware of these veiled claims and counter claims, apart from such industry insiders as us, you and the figurine-collecting, rarity-sneaker wearing ironists in the respective ad agencies? And what the heck is Whitey going to say about it all come results time?

Comment: Product and price, boys. That's the stuff to give the punters. Leave competitive advertising to the yanks.

If you'd bought a brace or two of the securities of any of SA's major retailer seven or eight years ago – as we did – you would be feeling pretty clever right about now. They have all performed very nicely thank you very much, some moreso than others. And despite the decession of the recent past, this happy state of affairs has continued. The reason, Investec suspects, is in part that faceless, cigar-quaffing speculators are betting upon the rise of the African consumer, causing the ten-member FTSE/JSE Africa General Retailers Index to jump 45% in two years with the index now sitting at an average of 18.1 times the members' reported earnings, or 55 per cent higher than its 10-year average. But the feeling among the more cautious of the sharp-suited ones is that these valuations are overcooked and that retail generally might be in for something of a correction. Africa will deliver, they say, but there will be headwinds like legislative complexity, poor logistics infrastructure and a lack of retail property.

Comment: How did we do there? Phew!

Massmart are planning to take on the competition – as opposed to the Competition Commission – with the judicious deployment of Asda practices in the South African market, we are told. This is what we industry types call a big deal: Asda promises to be 10% cheaper than its competition, and fields hundreds of thousands of online price checks from punters weekly to back this up. They have a private label ratio of 50% across the board, which goes up to 90% in categories like meat, and they have a “relatively flat” gross profit margin in order to keep the customers streaming in. A caveat though: Sanlam are calling Massmart a sell as they reckon the share is about as ripe as it's going to get, and here we'll hand over to them: “We expect Massmart to find it a lot tougher to build substantial scale in the food retail sector compared to what it has experienced in the fragmented and unorganised home improvement, building material and general merchandise industries.” Couldn't have put it better ourselves.

Comment: Have Sanlam looked at what Asda-like practices might do on the food front, we ask ourselves. Hmmm? Eh?

Like others who rely on commodities for their daily crust, Pioneer has had a toughish time of it this six-month past. Group revenue was up 11% to R9,2bn, it is true, while selling prices increased an average of 17%. But profits were hit by the R161million they coughed up for phase 2 of their BEE transaction. Input costs also had a depressing effect, if that's the expression, with maize up 60% in an unspecified period, and fuel costs doing their bit to play merry heck with the numbers too. This saw operating profit down 5% to R628m, with margin shrinking from 7,9% to 6,8%. On the upside, heavy investment in the marketing of breakfast cereals paid off, with that side of the business posting a handsome and sustained contribution – excluding marketing costs.

Comment: And when lower maize costs work their way through the system, Pioneer reckon the punters will be back in force, bashing their enamel plates with their wooden spoons.

Barloworld Logistics, you will be pleased to know, are keeping their end up in the ongoing good fortune of parent business Barloworld, which will buy and successfully run just about anything which has wheels, like our cousin Kevin, currently restoring a '72 Valiant in his backyard over in Bellair. For the interim period, which ended in March, revenue was up 19% to R28.1 billion, with operating profit up 50% to R1 282 million for the main business, while logistics turned itself around nicely, with an operating profit of R37 million compared with a loss of R9 million in the prior period. The southern African business was the star performer here, with volumes up in certain key contracts and the fruition of a number of nifty cost-saving exercises, although the international businesses also improved.

Comment: Nice one, that manly although surprisingly well-groomed feller.

And now we know why. Globally, we are told, le grand Bleu employs a staggering 6000 scientists, engineers, chefs and technicians (the number is staggering, not the scientists. Obviously. We can't speak for the chefs and engineers, though). And locally, they have just gone and opened a R44million R&D facility in their Idonsa plant in Durban, with a view to upping the innovative ante on brands such as Omo, Lux, Dove, Knorr and Robertsons, for the local and the broader African market, where they own about R35billion worth of business. Globally, Unilever has delivered 240 improvements on its 170 brands in the past year. An important ancillary function of the centre, in these days of a rampant ASA, will be the testing of products to ensure that brands deliver scientifically on their claims.

Comment: Innovation, eh. Sounds a bit new-fangled to us.

Don't start hoarding the rice and guns just yet, but the risk of China coming down for a hard economic landing has recently trebled – albeit only to 15%, but still – due to a concatenation of circumstances which include rising wages, a falling ratio of consumption to GDP and the tailing off of stimulus spending which has seen GDP growth cruising at over 8% this year. Should things go belly up – even relatively speaking – in that Asian giant, with growth falling to 5% or so, we are in the dwang so to speak. As the most outward-facing economy on a continent which is awash with renminbi's right now, our economy could stall with any slowdown in Chinese growth, and we could be looking at GDP growth of just 2% per annum and the loss of many, many jobs. This according to the sagacious number crunchers over at Standard Bank, who should know.

Comment: Comment: Good thing Europe's there to back us up … oh, hell.

Perhaps it's indelicate to enquire, but have AVI got a well, thing, for footwear? No one's judging here, but that might explain their most recent acquisition, none other than sensible shoemaker Green Cross, cushy of heel, uplifting of arch and sturdy of silhouette. They join Spitz and Jimmy Choos in a stable of brands otherwise distinguished by teas and biccies. The price tag for the deal was R382.5 million, which would buy you a couple pairs of the aforementioned Jimmy's.

Lest you thought this whole Eurozone thing was a storm in a teacup, and we can't imagine why you would, Marks and Sparks has just gone and posted its first decline in profits since the great decession of the year 8, with underlying pre-tax profits down 1.2% to £705.9m in the year to 31 March, and total sales up only 2% to £9.9bn. While competitive headwinds in apparel might bear some of the fault, it's mainly due to a decline in the spending of even the posher and more established consumers, we are told.