When the first Nakumatt opens in Polokwane, or when they get bought by Walmart, don’t say we didn’t warn you. The plucky Kenyan retailer has just opened a flagship super in the tourist town of Malindi and if you’re thinking corrugated iron, carved giraffes and plastic basins full of yams, just don’t. Nakumatt Malindi, you see, is an energy efficient store of the sort you would expect to encounter in Hyde Park or Claremont, with fittings and solutions imported from Italy, and with innovations like a fabric air dispersion system, covered chillers for frozen foods and fruit and energy efficient lighting it achieves 25% cost savings and could become a template for rollout in the rest of the group which as of Feb ’13 should comprise a respectable total of 40 stores. Other numbers of significance include its square footage (40,000) and its range of SKUs (also 40,000).

Comment: Exciting things from an energetic retailer in an exciting locale. A resurgent Kenya makes our entire continent a more interesting place to be.

Are we ready for a big Woolies? The success of the business and the quality of what it offers can’t really be called into question at this stage. But scale? Yes indeed if CEO Ian “The Transporter” Moir is to be believed. It is the conviction of Mr Moir that LSM 8–10 will enjoy growth in numbers of 5% over the next three years, with 92% of this being black consumers – among whom the Dapper One is enjoying unprecedented success, accounting as they do for 50% of clothing sales. The advantage of this strategic focus on the upper end, of course, is just how crowded it’s becoming on the middle of the market since the advent of Massmart as a serious player there. We’re inclined to take Mr M’s pronouncements seriously: under his stewardship, margin in food has risen from 3.6% to 5.8%, in clothing from 10.4% to 16.7%, and headline earnings per share have grown 142% in the last three years, two of those on his watch.

Comment: Woolies is fast becoming a textbook study in every area of business endeavour.

In a surprising but no doubt well-considered move, Unilever South Africa is disposing – Competition Commission permitting – of one of its best loved brands. Mrs Ball’s Chutney, whose name alone was able to cause fits of ribald hilarity when we were in the Navy, is being parcelled off to Tiger Brands for a fee as handsome as Mrs Ball herself, viz R475million, on the strength of an annual turnover a few bar shy of R200million. Unilever SA Chair Marijn van Tiggelen explains the sale as resulting from Le Grand Bleu’s periodic review of their portfolio and the dawning realisation that they were not in a position to give the brand the focus it deserves. For their part, Tiger believe that there is a commodious spot for Mrs H’s in their stable, which on the sauces side of things includes such staples as All Gold, Colman’s and Crosse & Blackwell.

Comment: A good fit, and for Tiger, a growing space on that critical second shelf down in the door of the fridge.

In a move which awakens in us a powerful thirst, The Big Feller has announced that as of April next year they will be bringing us their ambrosial offering in delicately frosted cans wrought of purest aluminimiumiunium. The advantages of the space age metal include lower raw material and transport costs and better printability, for more enticing labels, presumably. Also that Arcelor Mittal can’t hope to produce lightweight steel at anything near the same price. Aluminium now accounts for all cans in the US of A where they are used to store Root Beer and Sasparilla until it is safe to dispose of at sea, and 75% of cans in Europe, where they are filled with strange, bitter, undrinkable fizzy orange beverages. Nampak, whose Bevcan unit is the only can producer in South Africa, is committing between R6 – 700millions to convert the necessary lines to aluminium.

Comment: Biermanskap, nê.

There will be growth – oh, yes, there will be growth – but it will not achieve the astral levels of 2011, according to the blind crone over at the South African Council of Shopping Centres. Last year, you will remember with a fond tear in your eye, December sales were up 12.8% year-on-year. This year, however, the sibilantly-acronymed SACSC believe it’s going to be somewhere in the region of an inflation-pipping 7 or 9%, for a total somewhere just north of R80billion. “Why?” you plead, “Why not more?” It’s like this. The state of the local and global economy has gotten everyone a little skittish, and punters are being assailed on all sides by non-retail inflationary pressures, for eg: school fees (9%), petrol (17%), electricity (10%) water and services (9%) and public transport (15%).

Comment: So let us be grateful for the 7% – 9% we’re going to get.

Pick n Pay has just opened its third Mauritian store, a 3,000m² super in Mont Choisy, near Grand Baie, catering to expats and locals alike. Last October, the World Bank ranked Mauritius as the easiest place to do business in Africa. By a certain definition of “in”, of course.

Among the things that the Tatler will in all likelihood outlive, from start to finish, is Tesco’s Fresh & Easy experiment in the USA, where it is set to close all 199 of the stores it began opening in 2007. The format has proved unprofitable, promising though it might once have seemed, and the withdrawal from the USA will enable Tesco to “refocus on its global portfolio” – which will very soon exclude the world’s biggest market.