The consensus among the gimlet-eyed men and pencil-skirted women who walk the bitter, lonely road of the analyst seems to be that the arrival of Walmart on these shores has indeed been a good thing for the dear old South African punter. Massmart reckon they saved Mrs P. about R300million last year in aggressive discounting and longer-term promotions, and Checkers are claiming the same. Unless they’re claiming that together they have saved consumers R300million, which given their thin track record of joint ventureship is probably not the case. And according to the business which unfortunately goes by the name of  Red Gekko Design and Branding Solutions, but which nevertheless runs the very useful Retail Price Watch website, retailers have been competing in the “must have” categories, ordering lots of such necessities as toilet rolls, washing powder and tinned goods and selling them low. These cuts are not coming out of the retailers’ own back sky, but must be wrested from suppliers, who in turn are finding it in supply chain efficiencies, to the benefit of everyone.

Comment: If true, and this can surely be only patchily so, it does indeed look like a bit of a win-win.

The Big Red one announced yesterday that it had grown turnover for the 12 months to June 2012 by 14.4% to about R82,7bn, with like store growth up 8.5%. The second half was particularly pleasing, with growth clipping along at 15.6% compared with 13.2% in the first. Sales from the 131 supermarkets beyond our shores was customarily stellar at 25.4%, while in the more mature, ahem South African market it was 12.9%. Of particular interest is internal food inflation, which averaged 4.9% for 2012 compared with -0.1% in 2011.

Comment: The full numbers are due out on 21 August, a day before Massmart’s.

While Adcock Ingram are offering voluntary retrenchments back home after a year in which circumstances beyond their control made life difficult – a chunk of their ARV tender went and they had their painkillers containing dextropropoxyphene taken off the market by the Medicines Control Council – they are looking at expansion in India, where they’re about to purchase a portfolio of 60 medicines and a distribution network from Cosme Farma for the equivalent of R710 million in cold, hard rupees in order to snaffle their share of the estimated R131bn that Indians spend on pharmaceuticals every year. A plus of the deal is that it gives them distribution facilities in 27 Indian states, and a range of muti running the gamut from dermatology to gynaecology, via gastro-intestinal and orthopaedic medicine.

Comment: At a PE of 13 for the deal, in a very competitive market, Adcock must really like what they see.

Bottled water contributed nearly 8% to Nestlé’s global sales last year, and yet here’s the Chairman himself, Peter Brabeck sounding off about how we’re already running out of the non-bottled variety and the next 15 or 20 years are going to look pretty sketchy on the liquid of life front. To the extent that he’s heading up a group linked to the World Bank whose goal it is to get governments and the private sector to begin to address issues of water scarcity. And to the extent also that he baled from the position of CEO back in the year 8 to devote himself more completely to the mission. One of the big threats to water, he believes, is biofuels, with 9,100 litres of the pure and sparkling stuff needed to grow the crops that produce 1 litre of the combustible planet-destroying stuff.

Comment: Comment: And let’s not even get into fracking, where you pump billions of litres of water into the ground and bring it out contaminated so that we can all drive a second car.

The Netherlands, perhaps in belated remorse for having colonised the Cape, have very kindly sponsored a study into whether there’s any value in the market for value-added rooibos products exported elsewhere from Germany, a market we bet you never knew existed. Hamburg, you see, is one of the world’s great tea hubs (again, who knew?), and of the 6,000-odd (and we do mean odd) tons of Rooibos we export, the Germans soak up (figuratively, obviously. Mostly, anyway) about 2,500 tons, some of which makes its way to Austria and Switzerland. The latest tranche of Dutch largesse will be spent on investigating whether you can smoke the stuff the way production data is collected, analysed and disseminated, to ensure better production forecasts and supply capacity and help to limit major price fluctuations. Coming soon, the Rooibos Council is looking at the development of markets in Dubai and Taiwan, where the soothing cup is held in high esteem.

Comment: The excitement. We need a nice cup of thin, smoky rooibos with smidgeon of lemon and the merest suggestion of honey to calm us down.

The dark days of double-digit food inflation, with all that portends for our interest rate and the marginal lives of SA’s poor, may be back. Our friends in the United States inform us that the worst drought in the corn-growing Midwest since 1988 is underway. In addition, poor rains in the mealie-growing regions of the RS of A have led to a lower crop forecast from GrainSA, while the presence of Chinese buyers with their cheap briefcases means that demand is likely to push prices higher. Concern about the US harvest has already upped the ante, with white maize up 9.2% in June, and the yellow stuff we give to the birds and beasts up 10.2%. Food inflation contributes about 15% to the local total, which has recently dropped to 5.7%, the first time it has been in the targeted 3-6% band since last September.

Comment: Pray for rain, and we do not say that lightly.

Fruit & Veg City Sandton, you will be pleased to know, unless you’re the competition, has had charges against it of the sale of undersized rock lobster dismissed by the Randburg Magistrates Court. This despite the fact that the  Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries have claimed that officials had confiscated 50kg of undersized west coast rock lobster from the premises last week. FVC are saying it was only 5kg, and that they were a healthy, and legal size.
*Ah, The Rift!

Today’s punters are happy to walk around naked as the day they were born with tattoos of their favourite consumer brands on every inch of exposed flesh, according to a survey from IBM, who also found that they love to share stuff about themselves with anyone who will listen, watch or otherwise imbibe their desperate outpourings of their online egos. We have to share this with you: “The speed of technology innovation‚ consumer adoption and access to information has created an environment where everything is known and the consumer is truly the one in power‚ coalescing around shopping communities of ‘we‚’ ” says Jill Puleri‚ Global Retail Leader‚ IBM Global Business Services. If “we” are the ones in power, who is paying “us” for our precious and powerful information?

Squeaking in under our publishing deadline is The Dapper One, who have the following to report:

• Group sales up 11.8% for the year to June
• Like store sales up 7.1%
• Clothing sales up 12.6%
• Food sales up 11.9%
• General merchandise up 7.0%
• Retail space up 3.6%
• Australian sales down 2.6%, strewth